Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban immigrant who came to America over 60 years ago after escaping communist Cuba, issued a powerful warning to Americans during a round table with President Donald Trump last week, saying that the political Left in America today are &#8220;communists,&#8221; and that they are trying to destroy the nation.
Alvarez, president of Sunshine Gasoline Distributors, praised the president during the event and expressed overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity that living in the U.S. has afforded him.
During the speech, Alvarez said that he remember murderous dictator Fidel Castro&#8217;s promises &#8220;that we hear today about free education and free health care and free land.”
&#8220;My God, no freedom,&#8221; Alvarez continued. &#8220;But he never said that until after he was in power, got rid of all the police, got rid of all the military – been there for the last 60 years and counting. And he destroyed each and every one who helped him.&#8221;
Alvarez said that his father told him, “Don’t lose this place because you’re never going to be as lucky as me. Because if you lose this place, you have no place to go.”
&#8220;So with that, please keep that in mind,&#8221; Alvarez continued. &#8220;And please, people, explain that to our young people who are demonstrating out there. Don’t be useful idiots. Please understand what’s happening in our country. See what happens to our parents and see what is happening to America today.&#8221;
WATCH:
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If you&#39;re worried for our country, please share this speech with everyone you know. <a href="https://t.co/z4fFGwoOhp">pic.twitter.com/z4fFGwoOhp</a>
&mdash; Jeffrey Marty (@Jeffrey_Marty) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Marty/status/1282113075534090241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>Look at the people in this table. Look at our backgrounds. Just think that in 1961, as a 13-year-old, by myself, on my way to Spain. I wasn’t even coming here. I arrived in this great country and almost 60 years later, I’m sitting next to the President of the United States talking about the American dream. The only country in the world, no other country in the world that you can start a business from the trunk of your car and within a very few years with hard work, commitment, and all the core values that we learn from this very culture of ours, we can become very important to our future. We can become those people who make the next generation better than the one before. This is the only country. Why do you think you had to close the borders?
Because everybody in the world wants to come over here. Nobody’s ever forced to come over here. We come over here, in my case because my parents chose that I would not be indoctrinated by the communist country, by the totalitarian country, by the totalitarian regime. They don’t educate children. Absolutely not. And this is something that we need to understand. What is happening in our backyard today, I experienced as an 11-year-old. I remember vividly all the promises that a guy named Castro gave, and how 99% of the people swallowed the pill.
It took many years later, after I read somebody named Saul Alinsky, that I realized that all those people were nothing but useful idiots. I remember Castro while in the mountains being interviewed and asked if he was a communist. He went crazy. “‘I dare you,’ he says,” [foreign language 00:00:31:12]” [a] Roman Catholic. Educated by the Jesuits, he was. “How dare you! We even have a priest in the mountains.” We used to have priests in the mountains. I remember, I was in Marist Brothers, Christopher Columbus here for those who don’t. And I remember the Brothers, the Marist Brothers used to send young kids to the mountains because it was the second coming of our Lord. He was going to save Cuba. I remember how he promised to the farmers, to the [foreign language 00:31:48] that you’re going to own the land. I remember all the promises that we hear today about free education and free health care and free land.
My God, no freedom. But he never said that until after he was in power, got rid of all the police, got rid of all the military – been there for the last 60 years and counting. And he destroyed each and every one who helped him. The Catholic church, everybody. And why do I know that? Because I happened to come to this country with a very last nine cloister nuns from Convent Santa Clara, because he had taken over the convent. And I was on my way to Spain, I wasn’t even coming here, because I was going to join my brother, who my parents had already sent a few months before because he was in the age where the government will take him for indoctrination purposes.
My dad, who had experienced the same thing coming from Spain at the turn of the century, running away, not from socialism, communism. He knew better. I remember when he used to tell my mom, “Fefa, this SOB’s a communist.” My mother says, “Luca, how can you say that? He’s Catholic. Look, he’s [wearing] …” He had rosary beads all over his neck. It just so happened that when I was on my way to Spain to meet my brother, I was going to go to the Marist Brothers in La Coruna, Spain. Same brothers here at Christopher Columbus, by the way. My brother died, and I was kept in this country. Greatest blessing I ever had. But imagine what happened to mom and dad.
One day, you lose both kids. This is a family who had never been involved in politics. My father came at age 18 from Spain, running from communists. By himself, never went back. After a long, long life of sacrifice, when he was about to enjoy the fruit of his labors just like a president that is helping us today, because he could have been just having a good time, one of his many beautiful golf courses. But no. But yet he gave up enjoying the fruit of his labors to do this. So did my dad, that’s why I love you. Exactly the same. So when they’re about to do that from one day to the next, they end up in this country with the shirt that he was wearing on his back. And they did maximum, have been here already for years. But thank God for Pedro Pan.
Talking about socialism, Catholic church, 14,000 kids who came like me in this country without parents. And we were provided an opportunity. This is what makes our country great. They didn’t give me free nothing, they gave me the opportunity. That is the most valuable thing in the world. Now, when I said they didn’t give me any free something, please understand that at 13 years old, I had to be provided with a home, had to be provided with food, and an education. That is socialism, that’s Americanism, that’s the America that these people are trying to destroy today by using funny terms like socialism. They’re not, they’re communists. Don’t ever forget that. I know our president understands that because he knows, he’s been all over the world. And you’re surrounded with great people, very loyal people, and we have our back.
I remember the first time I gave little speech about something like this, tell him about I came from Cuba, blah, blah, blah. I remember this was around October 2016. I thought you were a little crazy for the sacrifice you were about to take, but I predicted that we were going to elect you in November, and I was going to see you in the White House in January. Thank you very much. Because of the situations right now, I cannot give you hug. Otherwise, thank you very much. And I going to leave you with one last thing. Never forget about my dad who only had a sixth grade education, but I think he was the greatest philosopher I ever met. He used to tell us how lucky he was because he was able to come from Spain to Cuba. And then he came from Cuba to United States. And he saw me graduate from college, and that was the biggest prize he ever had. And he said, “Don’t lose this place because you’re never going to be as lucky as me. Because if you lose this place, you have no place to go.”
So with that, please keep that in mind. And please, people, explain that to our young people who are demonstrating out there. Don’t be useful idiots. Please understand what’s happening in our country. See what happens to our parents and see what is happening to America today. Mr. President, thank you very much. And thank you for your hard work.</blockquote>
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President Trump Holds Roundtable Discussion On Tax Reform

WATCH: Cuban Immigrant Warns Americans About ‘Communists’ Trying To Take Over U.S.

Communism

Cuba

The vast majority of us know who Adolf Hitler was. Even with the slightest level of historical understanding, we know that he was an evil man with an evil ideology responsible for millions of deaths. As a result, anyone who is accused of holding even a fraction of Hitler’s political views is judged with an understandable level of scorn, and those who openly align themselves with such an ideology are rightly exiled from mainstream society.
This is an easy position to understand. After all, one only has to look at the unimaginable violence ushered in by the totalitarian fascism of Nazi Germany to know that such an ideology is based on entirely immoral principles. However, if death tolls mean that Nazism, fascism, and white supremacy are evil ideologies, why is the same basic logic not applied to the politics of the far Left?
Under the ruthless communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union alone, according to the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810">Wall Street Journal</a>, “victims include 200,000 killed during the Red Terror (1918-22); 11 million dead from famine and dekulakization; 700,000 executed during the Great Terror (1937-38); 400,000 more executed between 1929 and 1953; 1.6 million dead during forced population transfers; and a minimum 2.7 million dead in the Gulag, labor colonies and special settlements.”
After the murder of at least 16,600,000 civilians, surely those with even a tangential connection to this regime would be wholeheartedly rejected by a political party who claim to advocate for peace and tolerance? Quite the opposite! Bernie Sanders, who has praised dictators and leftist regimes on multiple occasions – and even <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6989969/Topless-Sanders-banqueting-Soviet-Union-attacked-U-S-foreign-interventions.html">spent his honeymoon</a> in the Soviet Union – now leads the so-called “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, which represents the party base.
If we take other communist and socialist regimes into account, including China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and Venezuela, the estimated death count rockets to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=H1jsgYCoRioC">almost 100 million people</a>. This number is more than five times greater than that of Nazi Germany, and yet the continued promulgation of the politics of communism, socialism, and Marxism is permitted in a way that would be (thankfully) unimaginable if it were applied to Nazism or fascism.
The shocking acceptance of radical Leftism simply must end if we hope to prevent continued damage in the wake of this evil ideology. When politicians such as Bernie Sanders praise or effectively apologize for the actions of murderous dictators, they should be cast out of polite society with the same fervor as if someone said, “Hitler may have killed lots of Jews, but the roads sure were pretty!”
Sanders <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/us/bernie-sanders-fidel-castro-florida.html">said</a>: “When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”
This problem exists even at the pinnacle of American Leftism. The fact that a potential vice presidential candidate survived <a href="https://youtu.be/t8ZWtqIzmQI">refusing to reject Marxism</a> – while offering a disingenuous apology for praising Fidel Castro – should terrify anyone who values freedom and liberty.
The number of graves beneath history’s bloodthirsty communist and socialist regimes is staggering.
Had it not been for the United States, these numbers would have continued to rise as radical Leftism spread across the globe. The United States must continue to stand as the world’s greatest single force against totalitarianism and tyranny. This crucial moral battle will become impossible if we continue to allow these ideologies to fester within our borders.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Hammer and sickle

HAWORTH: The Deadly Double Standard Of Communism Vs. Fascism

Bernie Sanders

Fascism

Leftism

Marxism

Dr. Melina Abdullah, who leads the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter, has often been described by the media as a professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State L.A. But don’t make the mistake of marginalizing her as a mere academic. Her street-cred is hardcore, and her familial and ideological roots trace back through generations of Marxist organizers, reaching back a hundred years to the Communist Party of the German Reich.
A founding member of what would become the Black Lives Matter Global Network, Abdullah has grown the L.A. branch to 500 members since its inception almost seven years ago. While many subscribed to a misconception that BLM had lost its relevance in recent years, local chapter leaders had moved on to another stage of an organizing strategy that was less visible than traditional publicity stunts like blocking traffic. By the time video of George Floyd’s tragic death sparked nationwide protests and outrage, mechanisms were already in place to advance BLM-inspired movements like defunding police departments into the mainstream.
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This uprising is about more than <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GeorgeFloyd?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GeorgeFloyd</a>. He was the spark. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlackLivesMatter</a>
&mdash; #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA/status/1266922907462062081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Abdullah, 47, believes law enforcement agencies exist to maintain America’s capitalist social order, which in turn is the root cause of police misconduct against black people. She says racially biased policing and capitalism are connected structures of oppression that must be dismantled.
“White capitalism requires racist, violent policing to protect it,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-launches-6th-annual-black-xmas-campaign-to-divest-from-white-capitalism">wrote</a> Abdullah. “In order to eliminate police violence, and the killings of our people at their hands, we must also target the economic systems that built it and rely on it.”
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The sys of Wt supremacist heteronorm patriarchal capitalism is extremely fragile. Their pwr is false &amp; easily toppled when the ppl rise up.
&mdash; Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) <a href="https://twitter.com/DocMellyMel/status/631504135582433280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 12, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Abdullah, who uses her ex-husband’s last name, was raised in a family that has been organizing against capitalism for at least 100 years.
For most of her life, she was known as <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/21/local/me-55154">Melina Reimann</a>. As The Daily Wire exclusively reported in 2017, her paternal grandfather was a world-famous Marxist economist named <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/obituaries/guenter-reimann-economic-publisher-is-dead-at-100.html?_r=0">Günter Reimann</a>. He joined Germany’s Communist Party around 1920 and was part of the resistance to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
When he died in 2005, an obituary <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/01/guardianobituaries.germany">explained</a>, “Reimann’s understanding of capitalism derived from the position of desiring its overthrow.”
Long before Reimann advised governments, central banks, and CEOs from all over the globe, he was a 17-year-old rebel writing for Rosa Luxemburg’s Die Rote Fahne, which translates to The Red Flag. It was a communist newspaper <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/obituaries/guenter-reimann-economic-publisher-is-dead-at-100.html?_r=0">described</a> by the New York Times as “a party organ.”
The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/01/guardianobituaries.germany">reported</a> at the time of Reimann’s death:
<blockquote>…he worked underground with German social democrats and communist resistance fighters, fully aware that this might prove a terminal decision. Indeed, by 1934 the Gestapo was closing in. Nazi officials raided his house and arrested his student guest, Hu Lan-Xi, who would go on to become the Red Army’s first female general.</blockquote>
Reimann soon left Berlin and went into exile. By 1938, he was living in New York City with political refugee status, then acquired U.S. citizenship in 1944. Two years later, his son, John, was born.
John Reimann, who is white, would relocate to Oakland, California, during the turbulent 1960s, where Melina was born in 1972. Abdullah’s mother, who is black, was an elementary school teacher and volunteered at a breakfast program run by the Black Panther Party. Abdullah told <a href="https://thelandmag.com/the-people-v-melina-abdullah/">TheLAnd Magazine</a> that she was raised mostly by her mother, and her oldest friends and mentors are former Black Panthers.
Abdullah’s father, John Reimann, is a self-proclaimed <a href="https://www.laweekly.com/these-savvy-women-have-made-black-lives-matter-the-most-crucial-left-wing-movement-today/">Trotskyist</a> – a philosophy that advocates global socialism through continuing revolution. He worked for the Carpenters Union in the Bay Area, retired, and was part of Occupy Oakland at its beginning stages.
In 2012, he <a href="https://archive.iww.org/PDF/history/library/Reimann/Politics%20of%20Occupy%20Oakland.pdf">wrote</a> “The Politics of Occupy Oakland – A Marxist Viewpoint,” predicting:
<blockquote>Occupy Oakland and the Occupy movement in general is the warning of a far wider movement yet to come. As with Occupy, that wider movement will ultimately rise or fall, it will live or die, based on bold, defiant action and clear ideas. First and foremost must be opposition to capitalism itself.</blockquote>
The following year, the Black Lives Matter movement was born after a neighborhood watch volunteer was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin on July 13, 2013.
Since then, Abdullah has consistently spoken out against capitalism while building the L.A. chapter, often encouraging supporters to “disrupt white capitalism” at BLM demonstrations organized around officer-involved shootings and alleged police misconduct.
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Capitalism makes us&#8230;working class folks&#8230;believe that we are in competition with one another because viewing each other as adversaries allows capitalism to thrive. We topple capitalist oppression when we work in cooperation. Solidarity.
&mdash; Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) <a href="https://twitter.com/DocMellyMel/status/1033376619778400256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Under her leadership, BLM-LA has <a href="https://www.blmla.org/who-we-are#ourteam">established</a> an action team to guide protests. A policy team engages in local and statewide initiatives “that disrupt practices of state violence.” An education team targets public schools, and a communications team that works with professional media consultants to shape news narratives and amplify BLM’s signal to a wider audience. Abdullah has also forged alliances with several other activist groups, the ACLU, SEIU, the largest teachers union in town, and woke celebrities.
Abdullah has involved her two teenaged daughters in her organizing efforts in L.A. public schools, continuing the family legacy of community organizing going back four generations. The sisters co-founded the BLM Youth Vanguard in 2015, which consists of children and adolescents ages 6 to 18. The student-activist group has focused on abolishing cops from the nation’s second-largest public education system, which has its own police department. Time Magazine <a href="http://time.com/5463721/most-influential-teens-2018/">honored</a> one of Abdullah&#8217;s daughters, then 15, as one of the nation’s most influential teens in 2018.
Abdullah isn&#8217;t just a hardcore Marxist ideologically, her tactics follow the radical Marxist playbook. And sometimes, as her rivals in the black L.A. organizing scene <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/south-l-a-activist-demands-blm-leader-step-down-after-cheap-publicity-stunt-at-d-a-s-home">say</a>, those tactics cross the line into public acts of intimidation.
Case in point, BLM-LA has constantly bird-dogged the top law enforcement official in the region, L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who is up for reelection in November. Abdullah and other demonstrators showed up at her home earlier this year, banged on a drum, and rang her doorbell around 5:30 am.
The incident culminated with Lacey’s husband pointing a handgun out the couple’s front door. He then threatened to shoot Abdullah and ordered the trespassers to leave his property. BLM-LA’s communications team ensured <a href="https://twitter.com/Jasmyne/status/1234477040365031424">partial video</a> of the encounter went viral.
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a> This morning Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s husband pulled a gun out on Black Lives Matter activists who protested his wife in front of their house. <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BLMLA</a> <a href="https://t.co/wnCFMMvaWV">pic.twitter.com/wnCFMMvaWV</a>
&mdash; Jasmyne Cannick (@Jasmyne) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jasmyne/status/1234477040365031424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“Are you going to shoot me?” Abdullah can be heard asking.
“I will shoot you,” David Lacey responded. “Get off of my porch.”
The California attorney general’s office is currently <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-29/california-attorney-general-reviewing-gun-incident-jackie-lacey-husband">investigating</a> the case to determine whether Mr. Lacey committed a crime.
Abdullah and other Black Lives Matter members have also made uninvited visits to the homes of an LAPD commissioner, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and organized several protests outside Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house.
While demonstrating against a police shooting in 2016, Abdullah appeared to taunt Garcetti from his front yard. She posted a video to Instagram, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BLDH6m9jCov/?utm_source=ig_embed">saying</a>, “You don’t get to kill our kids and think your kid gets to sleep in peace…we’re bringing the hood to you.” Garcetti’s daughter, Maya, was four years old at the time.
Last summer, the L.A. City Attorney’s Office <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/los-angeles-drops-all-criminal-charges-against-jeffrey-cawood">dismissed</a> eight criminal charges against Abdullah that stemmed from her disruptive antics at LAPD Commission meetings, including alleged battery on a cop. She could have faced more than a year in jail if convicted. Prosecutors had agreed to drop all charges if Abdullah adhered to behavioral guidelines for six months. Her pro-bono legal team is headlined by Carl E. Douglas, best known as a member of O.J. Simpson’s “Dream Team” of defense attorneys and a 12-year protégé of the late Johnnie Cochran.
After the charges were officially dismissed, Abdullah’s counsel <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-11/black-lives-matter-leader-sues-city-ex-police-chief-beck">filed</a> a federal lawsuit accusing the city attorney’s office of malicious prosecution and the LAPD of wrongful arrest.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-and-teachers-union-work-as-partners-to-end-repressive-policing-in-schools">Black Lives Matter And Teachers Union Work As Partners To End ‘Repressive’ Policing In Schools</a>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Melina Abdullah

Black Lives Matter Leader’s Campaign To Cancel Capitalism Shaped By Marxist Upbringing

Black Lives Matter

Defund The Police

A far-left political group unveiled a new statue of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in Western Germany over the weekend which comes as numerous statues worldwide have been toppled in recent weeks.
&#8220;The installation of Germany&#8217;s first large public statue of Lenin outside the former communist East Germany was fiercely opposed by many Germans,&#8221; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-marxists-lenin-statue-germany/30681737.html">reported</a>. &#8220;The 1.3-ton, cast-iron statue was made in the former Czechoslovakia in 1957 and bought by the MLPD in an online auction for 16,000 euros ($18,000).&#8221;
Gelsenkirchen&#8217;s city council opposed the move by the far-left Marxist-Leninist Party Of Germany (MLPD) but was defeated in court because the statue was being erected on private property. The irony there is that Lenin, a communist, did not believe in the private ownership of property as his regime <a href="https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-vladimir-lenin">abolished</a> private land ownership on his first day in office.
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While statues of heroes such as George Washington, Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt are being vandalized knocked down or removed, Vladimir Lenin’s statue is being erected of all places in Germany that suffered years of communist oppression while it was divided. Pathetic! <a href="https://t.co/C7EuC5YxNL">pic.twitter.com/C7EuC5YxNL</a>
&mdash; Amir Tsarfati (@BeholdIsrael) <a href="https://twitter.com/BeholdIsrael/status/1275014492380938241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Lenin, head of the Bolshevik Party, rose to power during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and later went on to found the USSR, the world&#8217;s first communist nation. History <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/russia/vladimir-lenin">provides some background</a>:
<blockquote>[In April 1917] Lenin began plotting an overthrow of the Provisional Government. To Lenin, the provisional government was a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” He advocated instead for direct rule by the workers and peasants in a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
By fall of 1917, Russians had become even more war weary. Peasants, workers and soldiers demanded immediate change in what became known as the October Revolution.
Lenin, aware of the leadership vacuum plaguing Russia, decided to seize power. He secretly organized factory workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors into Red Guards — a volunteer paramilitary force. On November 7 and 8, 1917, Red Guards captured Provisional Government buildings in a bloodless coup d’état.
The Bolsheviks seized power of the government and proclaimed Soviet rule, making Lenin leader of the world’s first communist state. The new Soviet government ended Russian involvement in World War I with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.</blockquote>
The Bolshevik Revolution sparked a three-year civil war inside Russia between the Red Army and the White Army, which was supported by capitalists and supporters of democracy. Lenin instituted &#8220;War Communism,&#8221; which was a series of policies that essentially nationalized all industries throughout Russia. History notes:
<blockquote>These measures proved disastrous. Under the new state-owned economy, both industrial and agricultural output plummeted. An estimated five million Russians died of famine in 1921 and living standards across Russia plunged into abject poverty.
Mass unrest threatened the Soviet government. As a result, Lenin instituted his New Economic Policy, a temporary retreat from the complete nationalization of War Communism. The New Economic Policy created a more market-oriented economic system, “a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control.”</blockquote>
In 1918, Lenin was shot in an assassination attempt by a member of a rival party and his secret police force, the Cheka, responded by what became known as the &#8220;Red Terror,&#8221; a period of time in which mass executions were carried out against those who were not loyal to the communists. History reported that some estimates suggest that up to 100,000 people were killed as a result of the campaign.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed from 2017 <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810">noted</a> that the events that were set in place by the Russian Revolution of 1917 ended up leading to a century where communism was responsible for the deaths of approximately 100 million people.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

GERMANY-HISTORY-SOCIAL-POLITICS

Statue Of Communist Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin Unveiled In Germany

Vladimir Lenin

The most deadly form of the Chinese Flu may not be physical, but intellectual.
An article published on the Atlantic website this week displayed a kind of oppressive and tyrannical Chinese-style thinking that seems to be spreading through our intellectual classes like the Wuhan Virus itself.
The piece – co-authored by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona Law College professor Andrew Keane Woods – was so repellent to any Western sense of morality, ethics, or indeed law, that I wondered if some philosophical mutation of the Kung Flu hadn’t erased the mystic chords of memory from the professors’ brains.
The idea of the piece was that during this Courtesy-of-Wuhan crisis, American tech companies “are proudly collaborating with one another, and following government guidance, to censor harmful information related to the coronavirus. And they are using their prodigious data-collection capacities, in coordination with federal and state governments, to improve contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, and other health measures.”
Far from regarding this as an evil, or at least as an emergency contingency that needs to be walked back when the crisis ends, the professors believe that big business’ censoring and surveilling of Americans should become the new normal.
“In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values,” the piece reads.
Really? Is it too much to ask: Which society’s norms and values are these Chinese-style measures compatible with? If government and big business are colluding to censor speech and destroy our privacy, in what way are their actions compatible with anything resembling American norms and values?
This week on my podcast, I interviewed Steven W. Mosher, a conservative China expert and the author of “Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order.” Mr. Mosher gave a heartbreaking eyewitness account of forced abortions he witnessed in the 1980’s. (Under strong pressure from China, Stanford University expelled Mosher in 1985 for publishing these and other accounts.) Listening to his description of a 9-months pregnant woman being dragged off screaming to have her baby murdered and herself sterilized made it difficult for me to continue the interview.
Mr. Mosher also lent credence to almost inconceivable reports that the Chinese are forcibly harvesting the organs of dissenters and other marginalized groups in their concentration camps. These reports – which sound like something out of some preposterous thriller novel – were confirmed by an international tribunal last year. Mr. Mosher says the Chinese are using technology culled from America to render these prisoners brain dead in order to keep the organs fresh.
And yet, many in our academies continue to share our technology and research with China as if they were just another international neighbor. In January, the FBI arrested 60-year-old Dr. Charles Lieber, Chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Lieber, regarded as a future Nobel Prize winner, was charged with lying about his participation in China’s Thousand Talents Plan. And there are plenty of other top scientists participating in that plan, which the Department of Justice now regards as an espionage operation bent on stealing protected research and technology.
This is deeply disturbing. But just as disturbing is the sickening capitulation to Chinese economic power and intellectual influence among our chattering classes. The New York Times this week ran a typically slanted “news” article, hitting the Trump Administration for its moves to investigate the Chinese sources of the virus. Why shouldn’t they? We’ve seen movie studios, the NBA, and the NFL curtail their support of freedom fighters in Taiwan and Hong Kong to serve their Chinese masters. And, of course, the sort of “if we could only be China for a day” authoritarian longings of writers like Thomas Friedman show an almost complete disconnect from American “norms and values.”
The Chinese – by which, of course, I mean the Communists who run the country – are not our moral equals. They are not just a business enterprise we can compete or collaborate with, as we wish. They are a wicked and oppressive entity with imperialist aims. We cannot allow the intellectual version of the Chinese Flu to extinguish that truth in our minds.
We are going to have to fight these people – hopefully in a Cold War rather than a hot one. And for the good of humanity, we damn well better win.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

China flag

KLAVAN: There’s Another Chinese Virus Infecting The Minds Of Intellectuals

China

Chinese Communist Party

Coronavirus

COVID-19

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) jailed a former Chinese state media journalist who turned into an anti-corruption journalist because he &#8220;attacked and vilified the Communist Party and government.&#8221;
&#8220;Chen Jieren was convicted on Thursday of &#8216;picking quarrels and provoking trouble, extortion, illegal business operations and bribery&#8217;, a court in central Hunan province said in an online statement,&#8221; The South China Morning Post <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3082463/chinese-journalist-jailed-15-years-attacking-communist-party">reported</a>. &#8220;The charge of &#8216;picking quarrels and provoking trouble&#8217; is a catch-all that Chinese authorities often use against people who criticise the regime.&#8221;
Chen was jailed two years after he published two articles on his personal website that accused CCP officials of being corrupt.
&#8220;China is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and tightly controls the press at home while censoring most foreign media outlets via the Great Firewall, its vast online censorship and surveillance apparatus,&#8221; CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/asia/china-censorship-chen-jieren-intl-hnk/">reported</a>. &#8220;In March, China expelled journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, in an unprecedented move against the foreign press.&#8221;
U.S.-based Chinese news site Radio Free Asia reported that Chen was forced to state: &#8220;I abused my own influence and the trust of my social media followers. I used wording that evoked fairness and justice to cheat my readers; to deceive the people. I am a classic example of a fake guy on the internet.&#8221;
RFA reported that neither Chen nor members of his family, who were also taken away by the CCP, have been allowed access to a lawyer.
The news comes as China deals with global fallout over the coronavirus pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China, and that spread in part because China tried to cover-up the outbreak and repeatedly lied in subsequent statements about how dangerous the virus was.
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-gates-attacks-u-s-praises-china-china-did-a-lot-of-things-right-at-the-beginning">highlighted</a> just a few examples of China&#8217;s mishandling of the coronavirus at the start of the outbreak:
<blockquote>China has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-china-conspiracy-theory.html">falsely claimed</a> that the coronavirus came from the United States Army; tried to cover it up by <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-it-all-started-chinas-early-coronavirus-missteps-11583508932">silencing</a> doctors and journalists who were trying to warn the world; <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/">told</a> the world that there was not evidence the coronavirus could be transmitted person to person when they <a href="https://apnews.com/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9">knew</a> for a fact that it could; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says">intentionally lied</a> about how bad the outbreak was and tried to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/washington-post-evidence-coming-out-of-wuhan-suggests-real-death-toll-over-40000">cover up</a> deaths; and is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-still-misleads-the-world-on-the-coronavirus-11586818132">allegedly</a> continuing to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/china-still-not-letting-u-s-in-to-study-coronavirus-mike-pompeo-says">withhold</a> critical information about the outbreak.</blockquote>
U.S. officials have been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-crafting-retaliatory-measures-against-china-for-pandemic-scandal-potentially-have-evidence-virus-came-from-lab">crafting</a> retaliatory measures for the Trump administration to take against China ranging from demanding financial compensation to imposing massive tariffs to canceling debt that the U.S. owes China.
One top official cautioned to The Washington Post that right now was not the right time to punish China for what it did, but added that “there will be a time to do it.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Italy Sign A Memorandum On China&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative

Chinese Anti-Corruption Journalist Jailed 15 Years For ‘Vilifying The Communist Party’

On the latest episode of the “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) discussed with co-host Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire the danger that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses to the world.
After stating that he hopes the United states and the world will have a “fundamental reassessment” of their relationships with China, Cruz outlined several of the reasons the communist nation is so dangerous:
<blockquote>I&#8217;ve been saying for a long time, China is the single most important, the most significant geopolitical competitor to the United States for the next century. They’ve got 1.3 billion people; they&#8217;re governed by a communist government that lies, that murders, that tortures its citizens; they invest billions in their military, billions in expanding their economic influence – and I think this pandemic really illustrates just how dangerous that repressive regime of lying is.</blockquote>
Later, Knowles asked Cruz about the CCP’s influence over Hollywood, which is vast.
Cruz replied: “Hollywood is almost entirely bought and paid for by China. It’s such a big part – if you&#8217;re making a movie, you don&#8217;t want to tick off China because it&#8217;s too big a part of your global revenues, and so the great free speech warriors of Hollywood are perfectly happy to let China edit out portions of their movie they don&#8217;t like.”
The senator offered two examples. He first cited the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was reportedly edited for Chinese audiences to eliminate subject matter related to Mercury’s sexuality. He then talked about how the upcoming Tom Cruise film “Top Gun: Maverick” removed the Japanese and Taiwanese flags from the main character’s jacket so as not to anger China.
Cruz stated that he has introduced legislation called the Script Act, which “says if any Hollywood producer, if any movie maker lets the Chinese communist government censor or edit a film, that they can&#8217;t have access to our military, to our ships, to our planes, to everything they use to film movies like ‘Top Gun.’”
After discussing the security issues surrounding Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which “is essentially a global surveillance outfit,” according to Cruz, Knowles noted how “addicted” the United States has become to Chinese goods and services.
Senator Cruz then spoke about the “host of strategies” the CCP employs, including lying, “murder,” detainment and “torture” of more than a million Uighurs in “concentration camps,” and the mass theft of intellectual property.
<blockquote>They steal on a widespread level, on a military level, on a commercial level, on an academic level, they censor, and they also extort. They use access to their market – there&#8217;s a reason Hollywood&#8217;s terrified of ticking them off; there&#8217;s a reason the NBA is terrified of ticking them off &#8230; because they&#8217;ll close off their market to anyone who does.</blockquote>
Cruz then noted that during a tour of friendly countries Taiwan, Japan, India, and Hong Kong last fall, “every one of [the] meetings and discussions there where, what do we do about China? What do we do about the military threat? The diplomatic threat? The economic threat?”
Cruz also offered a stunning analogy:
<blockquote>Something I&#8217;ve said many times is Hong Kong is the new Berlin. Just as Berlin was the outpost of freedom against the Soviet Union, against communism when Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Hong Kong is where we&#8217;re seeing the touch points of this battle against China.</blockquote>
He then said what he hopes will happen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic:
<blockquote>I hope that Americans are waking up. I do think – for a long time, when I would lay out the harms of the Chinese communist government and the need to fight against it, the need not to be dependent on China, you would get almost crickets in the Senate from both Democrats and Republicans &#8230; their lying, their cover-up on coronavirus has now taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars in poverty and suffering. I hope that really causes people to open their eyes to what the danger is here.</blockquote>
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The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sen. Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz On Chinese Communism: ‘Hong Kong Is The New Berlin’

Hong Kong

Ted Cruz

Verdict with Ted Cruz

The Chinese Communist Party, which is known for its predatory practices, now reportedly has its sights set on taking natural resources from African nations that are indebted to China and that are struggling financially as a result of the coronavirus.
The extent of the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, is largely China&#8217;s fault because they lied to the world about it and tried to cover it up, thus preventing it from being better contained, and allowed international flights out of the affected areas despite restricting domestic travel.
China has been widely criticized for President Xi Jinping&#8217;s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), about which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has &#8220;repeatedly warn[ed] of unsustainable debt levels, predatory lending, and the lack of project transparency,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.csis.org/npfp/its-debt-trap-managing-china-imf-cooperation-across-belt-and-road">Center for Strategic International Studies</a>.
China is now reportedly looking to exploit African nations that are struggling as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, demanding that they turn over natural resources if they can&#8217;t pay up. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-africa-groans-under-debt-it-casts-wary-eye-at-china-11587115804">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Wealthy countries from the U.S. to Japan—watching their own economies lurch toward recession—are loath to forgive African debt if they think the money will indirectly support Chinese creditors, including the government, banks and contractors. At the same time, Beijing is worried about setting a precedent for widespread forgiveness. &#8230;
But some African governments already bilaterally petitioning China for relief say Chinese envoys are citing provisions in loan agreements that would transfer collateral, in some cases strategic state assets, into Beijing’s hands.
Officials in Zambia, for example, say Beijing is demanding collateral in exchange for debt deferral or forgiveness. Two senior Zambian officials on a government panel negotiating with China said they are considering giving the Chinese copper-mining assets including the country’s third-largest mine, Mopani, owned by Glencore PLC, a London-listed mining company, in exchange for debt relief.</blockquote>
The Journal noted that President Donald Trump has warned African countries that if they take money from China that could mean that they lose control of strategic assets in the future because the Chinese Communist Party is predatory in nature.
The Journal added:
<blockquote>When Sri Lanka was unable to repay a loan for a Chinese-built port in 2018, the government granted a state-run China-based shipping group a 99-year lease on the facility. Chinese port operators last year tightened their grip over a strategic naval port in the East African nation of Djibouti, where debt to China is equal to nearly 100% of gross domestic product. &#8230;
An estimated $143 billion of African debt to Chinese lenders has been racked up over two decades of record lending, according to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Much of that has financed large-scale infrastructure projects from light-railway systems in Ethiopia to airports in Zambia and ports in Tanzania.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Infuriating
African nations seeking debt deferral or forgiveness from Chinese gov are being told they have to give up strategic state assets
Zambia may give a copper mine to the Chinese gov
As if Africans haven’t already had so much stolen from them<a href="https://t.co/j1oqo5oOH9">https://t.co/j1oqo5oOH9</a> <a href="https://t.co/e1VRa3IRzk">pic.twitter.com/e1VRa3IRzk</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1252063487813054465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Back in the U.S., calls continue to grow from U.S. lawmakers to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawmakers-call-for-china-to-face-accountability-as-suspicion-grows-virus-leaked-from-lab">investigate</a> China and to make China <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-introduces-bill-to-investigate-chinas-coronavirus-cover-up-demands-china-pay-for-damage">pay</a> for the pandemic because they lied and covered up the extent of the epidemic. One study <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-coronavirus-outbreak-could-have-been-reduced-by-95-if-china-acted-sooner">found</a> that had China acted three weeks sooner, which still would have been after they learned about the outbreak, then the outbreak would have been 95% smaller and would have likely been regionally contained.

Chinas President Xi Jinping Visits Greece

China Preys On African Nations Struggling Financially Due To Pandemic That Came From China

Africa

Economy

Socialist Bernie Sanders told Fox News on Monday night that he did not regret defending murderous communist dictator Fidel Castro or communist China last month, comments that many have said hurt his campaign.
“You mentioned Cuba and authoritarian regimes,” Fox News’ Bret Baier said. “There are few moments in races that seem like turning points and many experts looked at that moment on ‘60 Minutes’ when you talked about Fidel Castro’s literacy program as a turning point in this race.”
“Do you regret at all saying what you said at that time in this race?’ Baier asked.
“No,” Sanders responded. “Look, I have spent my entire life fighting for working people and fighting for democracy.”
“So if you look at a country like China for example, is China a democracy? Of course it’s not a democracy,” Sanders said. “It is an authoritarian country and Xi is taking it in a bad direction but what can we say about China in the last 50 years?”
“Would anybody in their right mind deny that extreme poverty in China has been reduced? Can anyone deny that?” Sanders continued. “Of course not.”
When pressed by Baier about Democrats who responded negatively toward Sanders’ praise of communist Castro and China, Sanders replied, “So, what? Believe me, I’ve got a lot of Democrats who are attacking me as well. Nothing new there.”
WATCH:
<iframe title="Bernie Sanders Defends, Doesn&#039;t Regret Praising Fidel Castro" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M8H6pdwejKs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/where-does-bernie-sanders-stand-issues-heres-josh-hammer">highlighted</a> some of Sanders&#8217; extreme policy stances in a profile piece last year:
Economy: Sanders holds far-left views on economics that place him barely, if at all, to the right of an authentic European-style socialist. He supports punitive taxation and massive redistribution to mollify the purported scourge of wealth and income inequality in America. He has consistently supported substantial tax hikes on income, capital gains, and estates alike. Sanders supports substantial regulation of the financial services sector and large-scale government spending on infrastructure programs. He has generally opposed free trade due to reasons of labor protectionism. He has been critical of the Federal Reserve for allegedly empowering the wealthy. Sanders supports increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. He has taken a heavy-handed view of antitrust enforcement.
Health Care: Sanders is a longtime support of single-payer socialized medicine, and in many ways is the intellectual progenitor for the current Democratic Party candidate trend of favoring “Medicare for All.” He has often been critical of Obamacare for not going far enough with respect to health care coverage for all uncovered Americans. Sanders has never indicated any willingness to structurally reform fiscally ruinous health care-related entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Immigration: Although Sanders once was sympathetic to restrictive immigration measures due to reasons of labor protectionism, he has emerged over the past decade as a reliable vote in favor of pro-amnesty, pro-illegal immigration policies. He supports a pathway to citizenship for large swaths of illegal aliens. He has often been very critical of the Trump administration’s efforts at border security and immigration law enforcement.
Foreign Policy: Sanders has consistently opposed an aggressive overseas posture for U.S. foreign policy, and has routinely opposed large-scale U.S. military deployments overseas. He has been skeptical of or outright opposed to U.S. foreign policy missions against a wide variety of hostile actors — both state and non-state actors — across the Middle East. Sanders has long been deeply sympathetic toward communist Cuba — including the open <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/politics/heres-the-full-1985-interview-where-bernie-sanders-praised-castro-slammed-reagan-and-more/">praising of Fidel Castro</a> — and applauded the Obama administration’s efforts at détente with Cuba. He supported President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and has usually been more sympathetic to the Iranians and the Palestinian-Arabs than he has been to the Saudis and Israelis, respectively. He supports a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has often been very hostile to Israel’s defensive measures against the radical Islamic terrorism that engulfs the Jewish state on all sides. While running for president in 2016, Sanders <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-Jewish-group-slams-Bernie-Sanders-for-misstatements-on-2014-Gaza-war-450507">cited a blatantly false number</a> of Palestinian-Arab deaths that had allegedly resulted from the 2014 Gaza Strip war between the two sides.
Abortion: Sanders is fully pro-abortion, has never voted in favor of any piece of legislation that would restrict abortion, and has recently refused to identify any piece of legislation that he might support that would restrict abortion in any conceivable way. He supports <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1136285225632370688">ending the Hyde Amendment</a>, which has historically banned taxpayer funding of abortion, and has vowed to never nominate anyone to the U.S. Supreme Court who is not adamantly in favor of Roe v. Wade.
Guns: Although Sanders’ tenure in the House was marked by his opposition to various gun control measures, his tenure in the Senate has been marked by consistent support for gun control policies. Sanders supports a federal ban on “assault weapons,” supports “universal background checks” (i.e., background checks even for private firearms transfers), and has often criticized Republicans’ purported fealty to the National Rifle Association. Sanders supports a ban on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called “assault weapons” — a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42837/hammer-kamala-harriss-flirtation-banning-all-semi-josh-hammer">lead to the banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America</a>.

US-POLITICS-VOTE-SANDERS-CORONAVIRUS

WATCH: Bernie Doubles Down On Defending Communist Murderer Fidel Castro, China

castro

The Soviet Union reportedly viewed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as a person that they could exploit to promote their propaganda because of his political views and his positive views of the communist nation.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/world/europe/bernie-sanders-soviet-russia.html">reported</a> on Thursday night that newly discovered documents from Russia showed that Soviet officials sought to &#8220;exploit Mr. Sanders’ antiwar agenda for their own propaganda purposes.&#8221;
The Times noted that the Russian communists sought to exploit Sanders while he was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, after he wrote that he wanted the U.S. and the U.S.S.R to “live together as friends.”
&#8220;They also show how the Kremlin viewed these sister city relationships as vehicles to sway American public opinion about the Soviet Union,&#8221; the Times reported. &#8220;Nothing in the documents suggests that Mr. Sanders was the only local American official targeted for propaganda, or even that he was particularly receptive to it, though they do describe him as a socialist. But the documents do show the Soviets’ intensive preparation to use Mr. Sanders’ interest in their country to their advantage.&#8221;
A Soviet Foreign Ministry document discovered by the Times stated: “One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact.”
The Times noted that Sanders aggressively sought out the sister-city program with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Sanders even led a Burlington delegation to Yaroslavl to try to establish the basis for the sister-city relationship.
&#8220;But the trip wasn’t enough to cinch the sister-city relationship,&#8221; the Times added. &#8220;Mr. Sanders still had to convince Soviet officials in Moscow to grant their approval and allow Yaroslavl representatives to travel to Burlington. He offered glowing reviews in public and ratcheted up his lobbying effort in private.&#8221;
Sanders, still aggressively pursuing the program, wrote a glowing review about the communist nation, saying, “People there seemed reasonably happy and content. I didn’t notice much deprivation.”
Soviet officials coordinated all their responses to Sanders with Soviet officials in Moscow.
The Times reported that the Soviets created a seven-point “plan for information-propaganda work” for their trip to Burlington.
The document said, &#8220;When carrying out propaganda measures abroad, the forms and methods of the information-propaganda work and its concrete contents must be approved by the Soviet Embassy and take into account the Soviet Union’s relationship with the given country.”
Last Month, The Washington Post reported that the Russians were reportedly engaged in trying to boost Sanders&#8217; campaign.
Top officials “have repeatedly warned that Russia has ongoing plans to interfere in U.S. elections and foster divisions among Americans, part of a strategic goal to undermine U.S. standing in the world,” The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/bernie-sanders-briefed-by-us-officials-that-russia-is-trying-to-help-his-presidential-campaign/2020/02/21/5ad396a6-54bd-11ea-929a-64efa7482a77_story.html">reported</a>. “Some analysts believe that the Kremlin’s goal is to cause the maximum disruption within the United States, and it throws the support of its hackers and trolls behind candidates based on that goal, not any particular affinity for the persons running.”
The Post highlighted Sanders&#8217; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/03/bernie-sanderss-foreign-policy-is-risk-democrats-against-trump/">connections</a> to Russia early last month:
<blockquote>One issue involves Sanders’s stance toward the former Soviet Union, a record that could undercut Democrats’ ability to criticize Trump for being too close to Russia today.
The documents from the Sanders archives include a letter from Soviet Embassy First Secretary Vadim Kuznetsov in March 1983, congratulating Sanders on his reelection as mayor and thanking Sanders for receiving him in Sanders’s office. Kuznetsov had been in Burlington to attend a conference on nuclear disarmament at the University of Vermont a few days earlier. Neither Sanders nor conference organizers appear to have read a 1976 Time magazine article that identified Kuznetsov as a member of a “Soviet intelligence squad” posing as diplomats to infiltrate U.S. politics.
In 1988, Sanders traveled to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon and forged a “sister city” cooperation program there. Many believe he gave a rosy depiction of conditions there just a few years before the communist system collapsed.</blockquote>

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders Holds Super Tuesday Night Rally In Vermont

USSR Viewed ‘Socialist’ Bernie As Someone They Could ‘Exploit’ To Push ‘Propaganda,’ Report Says

Russia

socialist

Communist Cuba praised socialist Bernie Sanders, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, for his recent praise of the communist nation.
&#8220;Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, prominently displayed a report about Sanders and his praise of &#8216;some of the social programs implemented by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro,'&#8221; The Miami Herald <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240626672.html">reported</a>. &#8220;Adding its own analysis of the Democratic race, the newspaper said Sanders seemed &#8216;unstoppable&#8217; in his move towards the nomination.&#8221;
&#8220;Granma and several state media outlets reported the comments made by Sanders in an interview with Anderson Cooper for &#8217;60 minutes&#8217; on Sunday, in which the senator said it was &#8216;unfair&#8217; to say that &#8216;everything is bad&#8217; in Cuba, and praised the literacy campaign implemented by Fidel Castro shortly after he rose to power in 1959,&#8221; the Herald added. &#8220;The report also mentions that Sanders had recognized the role of Cuba in sending &#8216;doctors all over the world,&#8217; another Castro initiative, but incorrectly attributed these comments, made during a debate in the 2016 elections, to the interview with Cooper.&#8221;
The newspaper then attacked Cuban Americans who had escaped the communist nation, writing that Sanders&#8217; “comments sparked the anger of the most extremist sector of Cuban-Americans in South Florida, who oppose any rapprochement with the Caribbean island.”
Sanders&#8217; remarks were widely condemned by Cuban Americans, Republicans, and Democrats who found his praise of a brutal, dictatorial regime appalling.
&#8220;Fidel Castro left a dark legacy of forced labor camps, religious repression, widespread poverty, firing squads, and the murder of thousands of his own people,&#8221; Michael Bloomberg said in a tweet. &#8220;But sure, Bernie, let’s talk about his literacy program.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Fidel Castro left a dark legacy of forced labor camps, religious repression, widespread poverty, firing squads, and the murder of thousands of his own people.
But sure, Bernie, let’s talk about his literacy program. <a href="https://t.co/3Xqu435uoA">pic.twitter.com/3Xqu435uoA</a>
&mdash; Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1231999095214084098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Pete Buttigieg tweeted a link asking for donations, writing, &#8220;Chip in if you don’t want to have to defend Fidel Castro.&#8221;
Tom Steyer tore into Sanders during a CNN town hall, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-steyer-unloads-on-bernie-sanders-socialism-never-worked-we-stand-for-freedom">saying</a>, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to look at a dictator in Cuba who’s been there for 60 years, who has really done a terrible job for the Cuban people, who’s an autocrat who’s never allowed dissent or elections and who has done exactly — he’s had the government own the economy and people are hungry and he’s been a cruel controller of the country.  don’t think it’s appropriate to be giving him a lot of compliments.”
“If you’re asking me, will I ever compliment a regime that’s unelected, that rules without the rule of law, that is — that dominates its country without the kind of democracy and — that we have?” Steyer later added. “No, I’m never going to compliment that system. I don’t approve of it. I don’t think it works. I think we stand up for who we are around the country because we’re trying to be the best value driven country in the world. That’s who we are. We should be proud of it and we should never give in to somebody else’s view.”
Left-wing CNN commentator Ana Navarro tweeted: &#8220;I was born in Nicaragua. My parents live there. My husband was born in Cuba. Castros &amp; Ortega are corrupt, anti-American, murderous thugs. They jail, kill, torture, starve, beat, persecute political dissidents while enriching themselves. There is no f***ing bright side. Period.&#8221;
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I was born in Nicaragua. My parents live there. My husband was born in Cuba. Castros &amp; Ortega are corrupt, anti-American, murderous thugs. They jail, kill, torture, starve, beat, persecute political dissidents while enriching themselves.
There is no fucking bright side.
Period.
&mdash; Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) <a href="https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1232496056048291841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Bernie Sanders Returns To The Campaign Trail With A Rally In New York City

Communist Cuba Praises Bernie Sanders On Front Page Of State-Run Newspaper

2020 Election

Socialism

This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) the socialist Democratic presidential front-runner, made waves when he merely reiterated his lifelong warmth toward the viciously evil Cuban communist regime.
Brushing off the human rights violations of Fidel Castro — a man whose revolution ended with the murder or imprisonment of tens of thousands of his countrymen, and decades of impoverishment and repression for millions — Sanders explained: &#8220;We&#8217;re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know, it&#8217;s unfair to simply say everything is bad. &#8230; When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?&#8221;
But, of course, Sanders hasn&#8217;t merely praised Castro&#8217;s literacy programs (which, by the way, were propagandistic exploits. Cuba had an 80% literacy rate before Castro&#8217;s coup). Back in the 1980s, Sanders explained that he was &#8220;physically nauseated&#8221; by former President John F. Kennedy&#8217;s &#8220;hatred for the Cuban revolution.&#8221; In 1989, Sanders stated after visiting Cuba: &#8220;I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people.&#8221; He said that the Cuban people &#8220;had an almost religious affection&#8221; for Castro.
As it turns out, there is hardly a single communist regime of the past half-century for which Sanders has not expressed some level of moral support. This week, Sanders went out of his way to praise China, explaining: &#8220;It&#8217;s is an authoritarian country. &#8230; But can anyone deny — I mean, the facts are clear — that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history?&#8221; Naturally, Sanders neglects to mention that China&#8217;s embrace of free trade and profit margin in the 1990s was responsible for that rise from poverty. That would cut against his socialist worldview.
Then there&#8217;s the Nicaraguan communist regime of Daniel Ortega, which murdered thousands. Sanders celebrated the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s (he attended a rally at which protesters chanted, &#8220;the Yankee will die&#8221;), visited Nicaragua and returned to tut-tut Ortega&#8217;s human rights abuses by citing Abraham Lincoln&#8217;s suspension of habeas corpus. It&#8217;s no wonder Ortega has endorsed Sanders for the presidency.
Or how about the Venezuelan regime? Sanders refused to call socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro a dictator as late as last year, and refused to call opposition Juan Guaido the legitimate leader of the country. The Sanders Senate website carried an editorial for years that favorably compared the regime of Hugo Chavez with the poverty record of the United States.
And, of course, there&#8217;s Sanders&#8217; long record of propagandizing on behalf of the Soviet regime. Not only did Sanders visit the Soviet Union for a honeymoon/business trip with his new wife in 1988; he returned and declared that Moscow had &#8220;the most effective mass transit system&#8221; he had ever seen. He then celebrated that the Soviets were moving &#8220;forward into some of the early visions of their revolution, what their revolution was about in 1917.&#8221;
Sanders isn&#8217;t a European social democrat, warm toward Denmark and Norway. He&#8217;s a lifelong communist — a man who declared himself fully on board with the nationalization of nearly every major American industry in the 1970s — and an advocate for anti-Americanism abroad. The fact that it has taken until the verge of his nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee for members of the media and fellow Democrats to take note of this rather important truth demonstrates that the left&#8217;s gatekeeping function has been irrevocably broken.

SHAPIRO: The Worship of Dictators

Fidel Castro

Despite widespread backlash over his praise of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during an interview with &#8220;60 minutes&#8221; Sunday, Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) doubled down on his positive comments on the brutal communist leader&#8217;s regime during a townhall with CNN on Monday, declaring, &#8220;The truth is the truth.&#8221; But a past fact-check by the Washington Post on the claim Sanders continues to push suggests that the socialist senator&#8217;s &#8220;truth&#8221; about Castro&#8217;s regime lacks key context and relies on highly questionable data from the dictatorial regime.
&#8220;We&#8217;re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it&#8217;s unfair to simply say everything is bad.&#8221; Sanders told Anderson Cooper in an interview with CBS&#8217; &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; that aired Sunday. &#8220;When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?&#8221;
During the CNN townhall Monday, Chris Cuomo pressed Sanders on the claim. &#8220;So the Democrats who say, &#8216;You don&#8217;t say good things about Fidel Castro — he destroyed freedoms in that country, he played winners and losers and killed them and put them in prison forever. You don&#8217;t give him a pat on the back for anything.&#8221;
&#8220;You don&#8217;t give him— it&#8217;s not a question— Truth is truth,&#8221; said a clearly frustrated Sanders, a line that drew some applause and cheers from the largely left-wing audience. &#8220;Now if you want to disagree with me, if somebody wants to say that — and, by the way, all of those congress people that you mentioned just so happen to be supporting other candidates, just accidentally no doubt, coincidentally. But, you know, the truth is the truth. And that&#8217;s what happened in the first years of the Castro regime.&#8221;
&#8220;There was a lot of folks in Cuba at that point who were illiterate,&#8221; Sanders <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-bernie-continues-praise-for-murderous-dictator-castro-praises-communist-china">claimed</a> during the event. &#8220;He formed a literacy brigade, they went out and helped people learn to read and write. You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing.&#8221;
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Bernie Sanders doubles down on defending Fidel Castro: “the truth is the truth”<a href="https://t.co/bzmv1DmtJH">https://t.co/bzmv1DmtJH</a> <a href="https://t.co/oFrfNKXEOu">pic.twitter.com/oFrfNKXEOu</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1232134881175576576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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So, is Sanders&#8217; &#8220;truth&#8221; about the Castro regime actually true? While the basic assertion that Castro did implement a literacy program is certainly true, the underlying premise — that the &#8220;massive&#8221; literacy program was massively effective — is an oft-repeated claim about the communist regime that relies on questionable data and leaves out key context that ultimately undermines it.
As explained in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/">Washington Post fact-check</a> of leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau&#8217;s similar claim back in 2016, when Castro came to power, Cuba already had a strong literacy rate. In the areas of education and healthcare, the Post explained, &#8220;many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship.&#8221;
&#8220;A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation,&#8221; Trudeau said in response to Castro&#8217;s death in late November 2016. The Post gave the claim three Pinnochios:
<blockquote>Trudeau appears to accept outdated Cuban government spin as current fact. The reality is that education and health care were already relatively vibrant in Cuba before the revolution, compared with other Latin American countries. While the Castro regime has not let that slip — and given greater access to the poor — it is a stretch to claim Castro was responsible for “significant improvements,” especially more recently.
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Many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship; Cuba simply had a head start when Castro seized power.
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<blockquote>
Moreover, the focus on health care and education should not detract from the fact that overall living standards, as measured by gross domestic product, calorie consumption and other measures, have declined significantly under communist rule. Without big handouts from first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela, the economic picture would be even worse.
</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/james-woods-ted-cruz-team-up-to-take-down-sanders">James Woods, Ted Cruz Team Up To Take Down Sanders</a>
</div>

WATCH: Bernie Praises Brutal Communist Dictator Again: ‘Truth Is Truth’; Fact-Check: Here’s The Real Truth

Washington Post

Socialist Bernie Sanders, the current leader in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, doubled down on his praise for murderous communist dictator Fidel Castro on Monday night and went on to praise communist China.
&#8220;I will take one more step down the road from the stigma from some of your fellow Democrats,&#8221; CNN&#8217;s Chris Cuomo said during a Sanders town hall event. &#8220;You said on 60 Minutes this weekend, &#8216;It is unfair to say that everything is bad with the way that Fidel Castro ruled in Cuba.&#8217;
&#8220;Now, Democratic members of Congress who represent Cuban Americans in Florida, obviously you got to win there, they’re attacking your comment as absolutely unacceptable, singing the praises of a murderous tyrant,&#8221; Cuomo continued. &#8220;Response?&#8221;
&#8220;The response was, when Fidel Castro first came to power &#8230; he initiated a major literacy program,&#8221; Sanders falsely claimed. &#8220;There was a lot of folks in Cuba at that point who were illiterate. He formed a literacy brigade, they went out and helped people learn to read and write. You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing.&#8221;
Sanders then praised communist China, which murdered 45 million of its own people to implement communism and which currently has a million people in concentration camps.
&#8220;China is an authoritarian country becoming more and more authoritarian. But can anyone deny, I mean the facts are clear, that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history,&#8221; Sanders continued. &#8220;Do I get criticized because I say that? It&#8217;s the truth. So that is the fact, end of discussion.&#8221;
Cuomo pointed out that Castro was a murderer, to which Sanders again doubled down on his praised of the communist dictator, &#8220;Truth is truth.&#8221;
WATCH:
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WOW! Bernie Sanders just doubled down on his defense of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro&#39;s literacy program at tonight&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNNTownHall?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CNNTownHall</a>. 
While also praising Communist China for having taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history. <a href="https://t.co/XGv3KHj6z3">pic.twitter.com/XGv3KHj6z3</a>
&mdash; Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancisBrennan/status/1232135472362729472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
The Blaze <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bernie-sanders-doubles-down-on-his-support-for-communist-fidel-castro-in-60-minutes-interview">reported</a> that Sanders was promoting debunked communist propaganda with his misleading claims:
<blockquote>While it is true that Castro implemented a reading program on the island after seizing power in a bloody revolution in 1959, Cuba’s literacy rate was already high for a Latin American nation at the time and its educational gains have been comparable to those of its peers in the years since.
As attorney Hans Bader noted in an August 2016 article, nearly eight out of 10 Cubans already knew how to read by 1950. This figure was similar to that of Costa Rica, which also achieved 100 percent literacy over the following decades — except Costa Rica and other countries did so without the kind of authoritarian dictatorship that Cubans have endured under the Castro regime for over 61 years.</blockquote>
Sanders also falsely claimed that the Democrats who have attacked him over his pro-communist comments are backing other candidates.
Reporter Josh Kraushaar noted: &#8220;At CNN town hall, Bernie Sanders said the FL Dem members of Congress crIticizing his Castro comments all have endorsed other 2020 candidates. That’s false: Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell have not endorsed anyone in the Dem primary.&#8221;
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At CNN town hall, Bernie Sanders said the FL Dem members of Congress crIticizing his Castro comments all have endorsed other 2020 candidates. 
That’s false: Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell have not endorsed anyone in the Dem primary.
&mdash; Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) <a href="https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1232138589112295424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Sanders&#8217; remarks were widely condemned by Republicans, Democrats, the media, and immigrants who have escaped communist nations.
This report has been updated to include additional information.

US-POLITICS-VOTE-ELECTION

Bernie Continues Praise For Murderous Dictator Castro, Praises Communist China

Last week, students in a high school history class in Baltimore County, Maryland, got their own dose of leftist indoctrination, as a slide depicted President Trump next to a Nazi swastika and the Communist Party&#8217;s hammer and sickle.
The slide at Loch Raven High School showed Trump with the caption, &#8220;Wants to round up a group of people and build a giant wall.&#8221; Below that on the left was the swastika with the caption “been there” and below Trump on the right was was the hammer and sickle accompanied by the caption, &#8220;done that.&#8221; A banner to the side of the slide read, &#8220;Oh that&#8217;s why it sounds so familiar!&#8221;
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The school system said Wednesday that the slide was &quot;not intended to make a political statement&quot; but also noted: &quot;The referenced slide was not part of [AP curriculum resources]&#8230;&quot; <a href="https://t.co/uToqAu8aek">https://t.co/uToqAu8aek</a>
&mdash; FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) <a href="https://twitter.com/FOXBaltimore/status/1230948839131144194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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One parent told <a href="https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/questions-raised-after-slide-with-pres-trump-shown-at-loch-raven-high">Fox45</a>, &#8220;The biggest problem is pushing an agenda on 16-year-olds. My understanding is that was just put up and it was left there for everyone to see the whole day. I was told that by another student who said the topic in that class was supposedly world leaders shunning other groups out. I said, &#8216;Is this part of the curriculum?'&#8221;
A spokesperson the Baltimore County Public Schools told Fox45:
<blockquote>This slide was used as part of a lesson in an AP History course. The topics being discussed included World Wars and the attempts by some leaders to limit, or prevent migration, into certain countries. In isolation and out of context with the lesson, the image could be misunderstood.
In our Advanced Placement (AP) classes, which are college level courses, we expect and encourage analysis and discussion around historical and current events even if they are considered controversial. This lesson was not intended to make a political statement. If a student has concerns when discussing a controversial issue, schools have the tools to address the concern and support the student.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-co-legislators-trump-slide-20200221-etqlbhub2recna2c44itpwu44u-story.html">The Baltimore Sun</a> reported, “Charles Herndon, a spokesman for Baltimore County schools, said students in such advanced high school classes are ‘discerning, intelligent students who are going to be able to draw their own inferences and draw their own conclusions.’”
Baltimore County councilman Wade Kach, who represents the district where the high school is located, countered, &#8220;To even imply that our president is in any way a Nazi or a communist is outrageous. Is this curriculum for AP? Is it a purchased curriculum? Is it one that our school system wrote? Where is it coming from? I just think that it’s irresponsible to post anything like this in a classroom.&#8221;
Dr. Richard Vatz, a professor at Towson University, told Fox45, &#8220;High schools are not supposed to take advocacy positions against presidents. They’re supposed to explain how political advocacy works, if that’s what they’re doing. They’re certainly not to take a position that the president is comparable to these awful leaders of the past.&#8221;
Vatz added, &#8220;If they’re not presenting that as clear, outrageous argument against the president of the United States, then they’re not doing their job. It’s really contemptible. But I want to say it&#8217;s conceivable the teachers are doing a better job than has been communicated to you.&#8221;
&nbsp;

President Donald Trump Opening Ceremony for Veterans Day Parade : NYC

High School Class Shows Slide Of Trump Next To Nazi And Communist Symbols

Donald Trump

Nazis

Self-styled &#8220;democratic socialist&#8221; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination after an easy victory in Nevada Saturday — was met with widespread backlash Sunday after he praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Sanders&#8217; praise of the tyrannical communist leader, made on CBS News&#8217; &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; with Anderson Cooper, echoed another much-criticized compliment of Castro by social justice activist Colin Kaepernick, who famously found himself flooded with boos when he took the field soon afterward in Miami.
Pressed Sunday by host Anderson Cooper about his past positive comments about various murderous communist regimes, Sanders <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernies-pro-castro-remarks-backfire-sound-of-bernies-latino-voter-wave-crashing">said</a>, &#8220;You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?&#8221;
Sanders&#8217; praise of Castro is almost identical to that offered by Kaepernick back in 2016, his final year in the league, a few days before a game in Miami against the Dolphins. The then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback was asked by a Cuban-American Miami Herald reporter about a T-shirt he wore to a press conference in August featuring an image of Castro meeting with Malcolm X in 1960 with the caption, &#8220;Like minds think alike.&#8221;
After trying to dodge the question, Kaepernick <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-kaepernick-greeted-deafening-boos-miami-james-barrett">responded</a>, &#8220;One thing that Fidel Castro did do is they have the highest literacy rate because they invest more in their education system than they do in their prison system — which we do not do here, even though we’re fully capable of doing that.&#8221;
When the reporter, who came from a family of Cuban refugees, brought up Castro’s tyrannical actions that broke up families, Kaepernick shrugged it off by accusing America of doing the same thing.
&#8220;We do break up families here,&#8221; said Kaepernick, as reported by the Palm Beach Post. &#8220;That’s what mass incarceration is. That was the foundation of slavery, so our country has been based on that as well as the genocide of Native Americans.&#8221;
When the reporter called out Kaepernick for trying to draw a moral equivalence between Castro&#8217;s long history of destroying his own people&#8217;s lives to maintain his political power to the American criminal justice system punishing criminals, Kaepernick said, &#8220;I’m equating the breaking up of families with the breaking up of families.&#8221;
When Kaepernick took the field in Miami a few days later, he was met with deafening boos. Watch via Fox NFL:
<iframe title="Kaepernick Booed By Miami Fans For Praising Dictator Fidel Castro" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3i4QV6ATlcI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Kaepernick’s 49ers went on to lose to the Dolphins <a href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=400874654">31 to 24</a>. When the embattled quarterback had a chance to tie the game in the last play, he came up two yards short, inspiring loud cheers and more boos from the Miami fans.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernies-pro-castro-remarks-backfire-sound-of-bernies-latino-voter-wave-crashing">The Daily Wire</a> highlighted, among those who criticized Sanders for his Kaepernick-esque praise of Castro is left-wing CNN commentator Ana Navarro, who tweeted: &#8220;Castro regime’s been in power in Cuba for +60 yrs w/o free elections. They’ve killed, jailed, tortured thousands. They confiscated assets, expelled priests &amp; nuns… And let’s be clear, Cubans weren’t exactly communicating by grunts. Most knew how to read.&#8221;
&#8220;I was in 2nd Grade when Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua,&#8221; she added in a follow-up tweet. &#8220;They adopted Cuban education model. The books/curriculum taught ideological indoctrination. Children had to recite communist, revolutionary, anti-American slogans. That’s how communist teach people to read and write.&#8221;
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Castro regime’s been in power in Cuba for +60 yrs w/o free elections. They’ve killed, jailed, tortured thousands. They confiscated assets, expelled priests &amp; nuns&#8230; And let’s be clear, Cubans weren’t exactly communicating by grunts. Most knew how to read. <a href="https://t.co/kKGM66a8ci">pic.twitter.com/kKGM66a8ci</a>
&mdash; Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) <a href="https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1231766703115325441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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When Castro died in 2016, shortly after Kaepernick&#8217;s comments, the Daily Wire provided some highlights of <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11102/breaking-communist-cuban-dictator-fidel-castro-michael-knowles">Castro’s human rights atrocities</a>, including, the following statistics from the Cuba Archive president:
<blockquote>It is difficult to calculate how many Cuban political dissidents and innocent civilians Castro killed throughout his fifty-year “revolutionary” reign, but Cuba Archive President Maria Werlau estimates 78,000 innocents have died trying to flee slavery under Castro; 5,300 peasant farmers and their children in the Escambray Mountains and at the Bay of Pigs; 14,000 in Fidel’s escapades abroad; 5,600 dissidents in front of firing squads; 1,200 in “extrajudicial assassinations”; and 2,199 documented political prison deaths. Welau notes, however, that these numbers are conservative estimates, and the actual casualties may number an order of magnitude more.</blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-third-way-memo-to-democrats-details-bernies-stunningly-radical-political-history-outrageous-support-of-our-enemies">Memo To Democrats Details Bernie’s ‘Stunningly Radical Political History,’ ‘Outrageous Support Of Our Enemies’</a>

Colin Kaepernick

Sanders Praises Fidel Castro; Kaepernick Did Same Thing; WATCH How Miami Fans Responded

Miami Dolphins

Socialist Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, faced widespread backlash late on Sunday night over positive remarks that he made about murderous Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro.
Sanders made the disturbing remarks on CBS News&#8217; &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; with host Anderson Cooper when Cooper pressed him about positive remarks that he had made about brutal communist regimes in the past.
&#8220;You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did?&#8221; Sanders said. &#8220;He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?&#8221;
Sanders&#8217; claim that Castro &#8220;came into office&#8221; lacks the historical context that Castro was essentially a terrorist who attacked Cuba&#8217;s government; he did not win in an election. Sanders&#8217; claim that Castro had a &#8220;massive literacy program&#8221; is communist propaganda, a point that many critics hit Sanders on in response to his pro-communist remarks.
Among those who fired back at Sanders were people on the political left &#8212; including politicians and people who appear on CNN and MSNBC &#8212; as well as Republican senators and conservative political commentators.
Left-wing CNN commentator Ana Navarro tweeted: &#8220;Castro regime’s been in power in Cuba for +60 yrs w/o free elections. They’ve killed, jailed, tortured thousands. They confiscated assets, expelled priests &amp; nuns&#8230; And let’s be clear, Cubans weren’t exactly communicating by grunts. Most knew how to read.&#8221;
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Castro regime’s been in power in Cuba for +60 yrs w/o free elections. They’ve killed, jailed, tortured thousands. They confiscated assets, expelled priests &amp; nuns&#8230; And let’s be clear, Cubans weren’t exactly communicating by grunts. Most knew how to read. <a href="https://t.co/kKGM66a8ci">pic.twitter.com/kKGM66a8ci</a>
&mdash; Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) <a href="https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1231766703115325441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Navarro added, &#8220;I was in 2nd Grade when Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua. They adopted Cuban education model. The books/curriculum taught ideological indoctrination. Children had to recite communist, revolutionary, anti-American slogans. That’s how communist teach people to read and write.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I was in 2nd Grade when Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua. They adopted Cuban education model. The books/curriculum taught ideological indoctrination. Children had to recite communist, revolutionary, anti-American slogans. That’s how communist teach people to read and write.
&mdash; Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) <a href="https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1231797010820403200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Left-wing MSNBC frequent guest Fernand Amandi tweeted out a series of videos showing Sanders&#8217; repeated praise for communist leaders.
Amandi tweeted, &#8220;Here’s avowed socialist @BernieSanders talking about how President Kennedy made him &#8216;want to puke&#8217; because JFK stood up to and condemned Fidel Castro’s tyrannical totalitarian regime in Cuba&#8221;
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Here’s avowed socialist <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BernieSanders</a> talking about how President Kennedy made him “want to puke” because JFK stood up to and condemned Fidel Castro’s tyrannical totalitarian regime in Cuba👇🏼<a href="https://t.co/qHXTea08Zp">pic.twitter.com/qHXTea08Zp</a>
&mdash; Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandiOnAir/status/1231796430345510912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Amandi continued, &#8220;Here is @BernieSanders TONIGHT defending Fidel Castro’s murderous totalitarian Communist regime in Cuba. Democrats, nominating this man will absolutely re-elect @realDonaldTrump and end our Constitutional republic.&#8221;
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Here is <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BernieSanders</a> TONIGHT defending Fidel Castro’s murderous totalitarian Communist regime in Cuba
Democrats, nominating this man will absolutely re-elect <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> and end our Constitutional republic. <a href="https://t.co/vAJX2ffbSQ">pic.twitter.com/vAJX2ffbSQ</a>
&mdash; Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandiOnAir/status/1231738392603451392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Amandi added, &#8220;Here’s a compilation clip of avowed socialist @BernieSanders talking about &#8216;how impressed he is,&#8217; with Fidel Castro’s murderous, communist totalitarian regime in Cuba&#8221;
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Here’s a compilation clip of avowed socialist <a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BernieSanders</a> talking about “how impressed he is,” with Fidel Castro’s murderous, communist totalitarian regime in Cuba👇🏼<a href="https://t.co/5xXsXqpeEW">pic.twitter.com/5xXsXqpeEW</a>
&mdash; Fernand R. Amandi (@AmandiOnAir) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandiOnAir/status/1231787068914884608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Miami Herald reporter David Smiley wrote: &#8220;That’s the sound of Bernie’s Latino voter wave crashing on the shores of Miami&#8221;
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That’s the sound of Bernie’s Latino voter wave crashing on the shores of Miami <a href="https://t.co/FwN64IOlY7">https://t.co/FwN64IOlY7</a>
&mdash; David Smiley (@NewsbySmiley) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsbySmiley/status/1231747588271067136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Former Obama White House staffer Christopher Hale wrote: &#8220;Fidel Castro was a dictator and a tyrant. He spent his regime murdering dissidents, imprisoning gay people, separating families from each other, banning the free and open practice of religion, and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. He’s not worthy of praise.&#8221;
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Fidel Castro was a dictator and a tyrant. He spent his regime murdering dissidents, imprisoning gay people, separating families from each other, banning the free and open practice of religion, and bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.
He’s not worthy of praise.
&mdash; Christopher J. Hale (@chrisjollyhale) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrisjollyhale/status/1231764029590376448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Statistician Josh Jordan responded: &#8220;On the same day that Bernie Sanders welcomed an endorsement from anti-Vaxxer Marianne Williamson, he&#8217;s got a 60 Minutes interview where he praises Castro&#8217;s indoctrination&#8230; I mean &#8216;literacy program.&#8217; I can&#8217;t wait to see how this plays with swing voters come November.&#8221;
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On the same day that Bernie Sanders welcomed an endorsement from anti-Vaxxer Marianne Williamson, he&#39;s got a 60 Minutes interview where he praises Castro&#39;s indoctrination&#8230; I mean &quot;literacy program.&quot;
I can&#39;t wait to see how this plays with swing voters come November. <a href="https://t.co/aABSiAspDo">https://t.co/aABSiAspDo</a>
&mdash; Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) <a href="https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/1231751874530988032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Leftist Democrat Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who is highly political and hates the Second Amendment, responded, &#8220;For the record @BernieSanders, Fidel &amp; Raul Castro, their murdering regime, &amp; co-conspirators have never had a redeeming quality, ZERO. They worked on literacy programs in a State that controls everything available for reading, in essence, literacy was a path to indoctrination.&#8221;
&#8220;I remember my high school history teacher trying to feed us the literacy achievement line,&#8221; Acevedo continued. &#8220;My response to him was I would rather be unread than to spend a lifetime reading the communist/socialists propaganda the Cuban government provided.&#8221;
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I remember my high school history teacher trying to feed us the literacy achievement line. My response to him was I would rather be unread than to spend a lifetime reading the communist/socialists propaganda the Cuban government provided.
&mdash; Chief Art Acevedo (@ArtAcevedo) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArtAcevedo/status/1231789783195832320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), whose father is from Cuba, responded, &#8220;It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read &amp; write.&#8221;
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It really makes a difference when those you murder at the firing squad can read &amp; write. <a href="https://t.co/4DKbSKpI6t">https://t.co/4DKbSKpI6t</a>
&mdash; Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1231762113141649408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Political strategist Rory Cooper responded, &#8220;Say goodbye to Florida. And prepare to spend money in New Jersey. If he’s the nominee.&#8221;
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Say goodbye to Florida. And prepare to spend money in New Jersey. If he’s the nominee. <a href="https://t.co/SgGActS5L7">https://t.co/SgGActS5L7</a>
&mdash; Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) <a href="https://twitter.com/rorycooper/status/1231735754633732097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Democrat Rep. Donna Shalala (FL) tweeted: &#8220;I&#8217;m hoping that in the future, Senator Sanders will take time to speak to some of my constituents before he decides to sing the praises of a murderous tyrant like Fidel Castro.&#8221;
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I&#39;m hoping that in the future, Senator Sanders will take time to speak to some of my constituents before he decides to sing the praises of a murderous tyrant like Fidel Castro. <a href="https://t.co/Iwvmay9LOH">https://t.co/Iwvmay9LOH</a> <a href="https://t.co/KT9sQ0pfkh">pic.twitter.com/KT9sQ0pfkh</a>
&mdash; Donna E. Shalala (@DonnaShalala) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonnaShalala/status/1231760466776657923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted: &#8220;Likely Dem nominee praised the supposed &#8216;achievements&#8217; Castro regime. 
And he’s wrong about why people didn’t overthrow Castro. It’s not because &#8216;he educated their kids,gave them health care&#8217; it‘s because his opponents were jailed, murdered or exiled.&#8221;
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Likely Dem nominee praised the supposed “achievements” Castro regime
And he’s wrong about why people didn’t overthrow Castro. It’s not because “he educated their kids,gave them health care” it‘s because his opponents were jailed,murdered or exiled <a href="https://t.co/6i41w7zcDe">https://t.co/6i41w7zcDe</a>
&mdash; Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1231779260911800320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) tweeted: &#8220;Shameful ignorance from @SenSanders. The Castro regime has killed &amp; imprisoned dissidents, oppressed its people and propped up murderous dictators like Maduro and Ortega.&#8221;
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Shameful ignorance from <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSanders?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenSanders</a>.
The Castro regime has killed &amp; imprisoned dissidents, oppressed its people and propped up murderous dictators like Maduro and Ortega. <a href="https://t.co/ROnmWT9oka">https://t.co/ROnmWT9oka</a>
&mdash; Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1231767757345230849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Bernie’s Pro-Castro Remarks Backfire: ‘Sound Of Bernie’s Latino Voter Wave Crashing’

Democratic Socialism

Socialist Bernie Sanders, the current front runner in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, praised murderous Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro during an interview on Sunday, arguing that he wasn&#8217;t that bad because he had a &#8220;massive literacy program.&#8221;
Sanders, who faced widespread backlash over his remarks, made the comments on CBS News&#8217; &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; with host Anderson Cooper when asked about his past support for tyrannical communist dictators.
&#8220;Back in the 1980s, Sanders had some positive things to say about the former Soviet Union and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua,&#8221; Cooper said while narrating during the segment. &#8220;Here he is explaining why the Cuban people didn&#8217;t rise up and help the U.S. overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro: &#8216;…he educated their kids, gave them health care, totally transformed the society, you know?'&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it&#8217;s unfair to simply say everything is bad,&#8221; Sanders responded. &#8220;You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?&#8221;
&#8220;A lot of dissidents imprisoned in Cuba,&#8221; Cooper responded.
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Bernie Sanders defends his 1980s comments about Fidel Castro in an interview on 60 Minutes. <a href="https://t.co/ySqvQKoiBU">https://t.co/ySqvQKoiBU</a> <a href="https://t.co/lTwuXWp9sA">pic.twitter.com/lTwuXWp9sA</a>
&mdash; 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) <a href="https://twitter.com/60Minutes/status/1231732950540132355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Blaze <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/bernie-sanders-doubles-down-on-his-support-for-communist-fidel-castro-in-60-minutes-interview">reported</a> that Sanders was promoting communist propaganda with his misleading claims:
<blockquote>While it is true that Castro implemented a reading program on the island after seizing power in a bloody revolution in 1959, Cuba&#8217;s literacy rate was already high for a Latin American nation at the time and its educational gains have been comparable to those of its peers in the years since.
As attorney Hans Bader noted in an August 2016 article, nearly eight out of 10 Cubans already knew how to read by 1950. This figure was similar to that of Costa Rica, which also achieved 100 percent literacy over the following decades — except Costa Rica and other countries did so without the kind of authoritarian dictatorship that Cubans have endured under the Castro regime for over 61 years.</blockquote>
Dr. Andy Gomez, a retired University of Miami professor who led the school&#8217;s Cuban Studies department for decades, told The Blaze: &#8220;Contrary to what Senator Bernie Sanders said, the literacy campaign used by the Castro regime was part of their strategic plan to indoctrinate the Cuban people by using education at all levels in support of a Marxist ideology.&#8221;
The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113590852154334404">reported</a> that Castro was a murderous communist dictator:
<blockquote>The Cuba Archive project has already begun the heavy lifting by attempting to document the loss of life attributable to revolutionary zealotry. The project, based in Chatham, N.J., covers the period from May 1952 &#8212; when the constitutional government fell to Gen. Fulgencio Batista &#8212; to the present. It has so far verified the names of 9,240 victims of the Castro regime and the circumstances of their deaths. Archive researchers meticulously insist on confirming stories of official murder from two independent sources.
Cuba Archive President Maria Werlau says the total number of victims could be higher by a factor of 10. Project Vice President Armando Lago, a Harvard-trained economist, has spent years studying the cost of the revolution and he estimates that almost 78,000 innocents may have died trying to flee the dictatorship. Another 5,300 are known to have lost their lives fighting communism in the Escambray Mountains (mostly peasant farmers and their children) and at the Bay of Pigs. An estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Fidel&#8217;s revolutionary adventures abroad, most notably his dispatch of 50,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1980s to help the Soviet-backed regime fight off the Unita insurgency.
The archive project can be likened to the 1999 &#8220;Black Book of Communism,&#8221; which documented the world-wide cost of communism, noting that &#8220;wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established it quickly led to crime, terror and repression.&#8221; The Castro methodology, Cuba Archive finds, was much like that used in Poland and East Germany, less lethal than Stalin&#8217;s purges, but equally effective in suppressing opposition. &#8230;
Cuba Archive finds that some 5,600 Cubans have died in front of firing squads and another 1,200 in &#8220;extrajudicial assassinations.&#8221; &#8230;
The heftiest death toll is among those trying to flee. Many have been killed by state security.</blockquote>

Democratic Presidential Candidates Attend Clark County Democrats Rally At The Tropicana In Las Vegas

Bernie Praises Murderous Communist Dictator Fidel Castro: ‘Had Massive Literacy Program’

With the success of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has come the rise in notoriety and popularity of so-called Democratic socialism in the United States.
According to a 2019 Gallup survey, 43% of Americans said that “some form of socialism [would] be a good thing” for the United States. Regardless of whether or not Americans fully understand what “socialism” means, they appear to support it in some way nonetheless.
Because of this development, I thought it would be vital to speak with Swedish author Johan Norberg, an historian of ideas and CATO Institute fellow, who has written such books as “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XOZ612/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1">In Defense of Global Capitalism</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XRXM6CV/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0">Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future</a>,” among others.
His documentary film, “Sweden, Lessons for America?” hit the airwaves in 2018, and can be rented or purchased on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sweden-Lessons-America-Johan-Norberg/dp/B07HP1YGX8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sweden+lessons+for+america&amp;psr=EVGR%7CPBPE%7CPSEL&amp;qid=1581840519&amp;s=prime-exclusive&amp;sr=8-1">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/sweden-lessons-for-america/id1455593303">iTunes</a>, and is available for free on <a href="https://youtu.be/jq3vVbdgMuQ">YouTube</a>.
In part one of this two-part interview, Norberg discusses socialism as a philosophy, the rise and fall of Sweden due to its experimentation with socialist ideas, the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders and what that means for the United States, and how even voluntary “libertarian” experiments in socialism have failed.
<blockquote>DW: There are a lot of people who cite the so-called “Nordic model” when advocating for socialism or “democratic socialism.” Is Sweden a socialist nation? And if it&#8217;s not, why do people seem to think it is?
NORBERG: Well, for some reason when I describe Sweden and Swedish policies to American socialists, they hate it; they seem to think that it&#8217;s awful. It&#8217;s a model not just based on an economy of private property and private enterprise, but also specifically, when you look at the business climate, we have low corporate taxes, we have free trade, we have, in many areas I would say, less regulation of business than the United States. We don&#8217;t have the kind of occupational licensing requirements that you do. In many of those areas, we are more fiercely capitalist than the United States. And those don’t seem to be the policies that the [Sen. Bernie] Sanders supporters are in favor of.
And if you also think about the kind of reforms that we&#8217;ve put in place since the 1990s – we&#8217;ve reformed social security, partially privatized it; we’ve opened up the public sector to competition and to freedom of choice; we have a national school voucher system – many different things to encourage dynamism and market forces. And that seems to be the total opposite of what any socialist that I&#8217;ve met is in favor of.
DW: Can you give me the abridged version of what happened in Sweden with the accumulation of wealth, the implementation of socialism, and then the realization that such ideas were not working?
NORBERG: Sure. We have to go back to that because this is the one story that people have forgotten. Their perception of Sweden is in many ways stuck in the 1970s and 1980s. That’s what they remember. This was the brief interlude in Swedish history when we really did experiment with socialist ideals. The background was that we had already made ourselves one of the richest countries on the planet, so we had a lot of money to redistribute. But, that was based on a different model. All that wealth was produced in an incredibly open economic model with a very limited government. Up until the early 1960s, Sweden had lower taxes than not just other European countries, but also lower taxes than the United States. That was the model that gave us all the wealth.
At that point, Swedish socialists and politicians said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s just redistribute this. We&#8217;ve got all of this wealth, so we don&#8217;t have to care about economic orthodoxy anymore.&#8221; And that&#8217;s the moment in time when they doubled the size of government, and jacked up all the taxes, and regulated the labor markets. The problem was that while you can go for some time with the accumulated wealth of yesteryear, eventually, you run out of it. At the beginning of the 1970s, we were 10% richer than other industrialized economies. 25 years later, we were 10% poorer than they were.
So almost at the exact moment when we began to grow the size of government, we began to lag behind all the other economies, and it was really the “Atlas Shrugged” moment in Swedish history because businesses left, entrepreneurs, innovators, our IKEAs and Tetra Paks, our great inventors and sportsman left Sweden because it wasn&#8217;t a hospitable climate for innovation and for starting businesses anymore. It all ended in a terrible crisis in the early 1990s, and that was the moment in time when everybody from the Left to the Right said, &#8220;This is all over. We can&#8217;t do this. We have to reform our systems and get back to the future, to get back to growth.&#8221;
DW: Proponents of socialism will tell you that the ideology works in concept, but simply hasn&#8217;t been implemented correctly. They&#8217;ll set aside Venezuela, which they once championed as a socialist success story, as having been corrupted. What&#8217;s the reality there? Why hasn&#8217;t socialism ever succeeded?
NORBERG: Well, it&#8217;s interesting because they always adore the policies. It&#8217;s just that they don&#8217;t like the outcomes and the results, the consequences. Socialists in Sweden and in the United States adored Venezuelan policies until it destroyed the economy, and had GDP per capita collapse by more than 60%, and people began to starve. At that point they said, &#8220;It&#8217;s not real socialism.&#8221;
So, apparently their definition is not just some kind of socialist policy, but it also has to turn out well – and in that case, they&#8217;re right because it has never been implemented anywhere with good results.
What they did was that they started to regulate the economy in a real way, in a socialist way, that Sweden never did. They began to take over private businesses. They began with drastic price controls because they thought that this was the way to give people cheap bread. But obviously, the result was, as it is everywhere where such things are being implemented, that farmers stopped producing food, and instead, they sell it on the black markets, and they smuggle it out of the country because they can&#8217;t make a living with those kinds of price controls.
They took all the capital, some of which they got because of the price increases in oil (some $1,000 billion over ten years), which could be used to invest in the country, it was all taken by the government to give to their supporters, some for programs and policies, but most of all just wasted in corruption and other stuff, which meant that they didn&#8217;t even invest in the future of the oil industry. So, the output grows smaller and smaller all the time. The moment when prices began to come down to normal levels, they couldn&#8217;t sustain anything anymore, and it all collapsed tremendously – and we all knew this. We could all see this because those policies on socializing businesses and implementing price controls, wasting capital rather than investing it, always ends up in tears – but socialists loved it until they noticed that people began to starve.
DW: What&#8217;s your opinion of socialism as a philosophical concept, and as a form of government?
NORBERG: Lots of people say that the ideas of socialism are wonderful, it’s just that the means were too brutal and awful, and the means corrupted the ends in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and Venezuela. Therefore, it collapsed. I would say it is the other way around. It&#8217;s the complete opposite. The problem is that socialism goes against human nature. It is the total opposite of any kind of system of human morality, and that’s why they always end up with walls and barbed wire and machine guns because that&#8217;s the only way to force people to do it. We know this because we&#8217;ve seen so many different experiments with socialism – even libertarian voluntary forms of socialism, like the kibbutz in Israel for example, and they were done by idealists.
No one was forced to work collectively. From each according to his ability, to each according to their needs – but it didn&#8217;t even work there. What happened was that people didn&#8217;t want that regimentation, that kind of collective ownership. People began to demand to do things in different ways and own stuff. They began to realize that when everything was in common, they began to waste stuff. People kept the light up and the heat during night when they didn&#8217;t need it because they didn&#8217;t have to pay market prices. People took their pets to the dining room because food was free. So people began to demand this kind of freedom, and when it came to work, what happened was that as one of the kibbutzim pioneers said, &#8220;It became a paradise for parasites” because if you don&#8217;t get your wage according to what you&#8217;ve done, the effort you put into it, why bother? Why do you ever work at all, in that case?
People of talent then began to leave the kibbutz.
The thing is, had this been Eastern Germany or Venezuela or the Soviet Union, they saw the same thing, and forced people to work, not for gain of a profit, but for the government, they had to force them. They brought out the machine guns. And if people wanted to leave for another place, they built the walls and they killed people who did it. So, it&#8217;s really that the brutal ends were a result of the whole system going so much against the human nature of people who want some freedom, who want some individual responsibility, and who want to gain according to what they do rather than what the governments tell them.
That&#8217;s a very long way of answering the question, but I think that&#8217;s important for the philosophical part of it. It&#8217;s not that the means corrupted the ends. It&#8217;s that the ends would never work, and that&#8217;s why they needed brutal means.
DW: One of the current front-runners in the Democratic primary race is a self-proclaimed socialist. What does that tell you about the political climate in the United States?
NORBERG: Well, it tells you that you should be worried about the state of political discourse in the United States, and I recognize this because this was where Sweden was in the 1970s. We had this tremendous growth; we had big, successful companies bringing in the money and the profits to the economy; and we thought two things: We thought that we were on top of the world and we could do anything. We didn&#8217;t have to care about economic orthodoxy anymore. But also, people began to say, &#8220;Well, that&#8217;s unfair. Why should a little group and the few businesses make all this money? Let&#8217;s just redistribute all of this.&#8221;
And especially, I think, if you are young, if you&#8217;re a student, if you haven&#8217;t been actively involved in working to sustain yourself to a large extent or never been involved in business, you&#8217;re used to the money just being there for you, and you also notice all these definite problems and inequalities in the world, and you just think, &#8220;Well, all the money&#8217;s there. Let&#8217;s just do something about it.&#8221; And you forget that, no, the money isn&#8217;t “just there.” We have to create it every minute, all the time, constantly, and the worse we make the situation for those who create that wealth, the less we will get in the long run. It happens again and again in human history, and often paradoxically, it happens when times are good and people think that they can do anything.</blockquote>
In part two of this interview, which will be released on Saturday, Norberg discusses the essentially non-existent distinction between “socialism” and “democratic socialism,” polls suggesting that 43% of American voters are amenable to socialism, how Sweden turned things around, how capitalism hasn’t “failed” as many socialists suggest, and more.
I’d like to thank Johan Norberg for taking the time to speak with me about such an increasingly important topic. For more information, you can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/johanknorberg?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Twitter</a>, or visit his <a href="http://www.johannorberg.net/">official website</a>.

Johan Norberg

INTERVIEW (Part I): Swedish Author Johan Norberg On The Devastating Impact Of Socialism, And What It Could Cost The U.S.

Economics

As Soviet Union-honeymooning, Sandinista-supporting, Fidel Castro-praising, full-on socialist loon bag Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) emerges as the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-will-win-democratic-primary-latest-2020-josh-hammer">undisputed front runner</a> for the Democratic Party&#8217;s 2020 presidential nomination, it nonetheless seems that the median American is rather lukewarm about the possibility of supporting someone for the presidency who holds such historically fringe views.
According to a Gallup <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx">survey</a> released yesterday, &#8220;[m]ore than 90% of Americans say they would be happy to vote for a presidential candidate their party nominated who would be black, Catholic, Hispanic, Jewish or a woman; 80% would accept evangelical Christians, homosexual men, and lesbians; 60-70% are willing to embrace a presidential candidate who is under 40, over 70, a Muslim or an atheist; but only 45% say they would vote for a socialist for president,&#8221; the Jewish Press <a href="https://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/gallup-90-of-americans-would-vote-for-jewish-black-catholic-hispanic-woman-candidates-but-not-for-a-socialist/2020/02/12/">summarized</a>.
&#8220;Gallup’s bottom line conclusion is: The self-declared socialist Sanders could count on 76% of Democratic voters, 45% of Independents and &#8230;  only 17% of Republicans,&#8221; the Press noted.
As Gallup noted at the top of its report, socialists are the &#8220;one group tested&#8221; who &#8220;receive[] majority opposition.&#8221; After all, &#8220;[l]ess than half of Americans, 45%, say they would vote for a socialist for president, while 53% say they would not.&#8221;
The is fairly brutal news for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and it goes a long way toward explaining why various levers of the DNC&#8217;s broader party apparatus have recently sounded the alarm about a possible Sanders nomination.
“The only thing, the only thing between the United States and the abyss is the Democratic Party. That’s it. If we go the way of the British Labour Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it’s going to be the end of days. … So I am scared to death, I really am,” former top Bill Clinton strategist James Carville said earlier this week while likening Sanders to the far-left Corbyn, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/end-of-days-carville-warns-dems-about-choosing-sanders-im-not-interested-in-being-in-a-cult">reported</a>.
“There’s a certain part of the Democratic Party that wants us to be a cult. I’m not interested in being in a cult. I’m 75 years old. I’m just not a very cult-y person,&#8221; Carville continued.
Similarly, former Obama-era secretary of state and failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry had to deny a recent report that he was considering jumping into the 2020 Democratic presidential race in a purported last-ditch attempt to stave off an impending Sanders nomination.
&#8220;NBC News reported on Sunday that Kerry &#8216;was overheard Sunday on the phone at a Des Moines hotel explaining what he would have to do to enter the presidential race amid &#8220;the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole,&#8221;&#8216;&#8221; The Daily Wire also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fing-false-john-kerry-explodes-over-report-indicating-he-may-jump-in-2020-race">noted</a> earlier this month.
Sanders has a lifelong history as a rabid socialist activist, and Paul Sperry <a href="https://nypost.com/2016/01/16/dont-be-fooled-by-bernie-sanders-hes-a-diehard-communist/">argued</a> at the New York Post in 2016 that Sanders is actually best described as a “diehard communist”:
<blockquote>In the early ’70s, Sanders helped found the Liberty Union Party, which called for the nationalization of all U.S. banks and the public takeover of all private utility companies.
After failed runs for Congress, Sanders in 1981 managed to get elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, where he restricted property rights for landlords, set price controls and raised property taxes to pay for communal land trusts. …
In 1985, he traveled to [Nicaragua] to celebrate the rise to power of the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista government. He called it a “heroic revolution.” …
Sanders also adopted a Soviet sister city outside Moscow and honeymooned with his second wife in the USSR. He put up a Soviet flag in his office, shocking even the Birkenstock-wearing local liberals. At the time, the Evil Empire was on the march around the world, and threatening the U.S. with nuclear annihilation.
Then, in 1989, as the West was on the verge of winning the Cold War, Sanders addressed the national conference of the U.S. Peace Council — a known front for the Communist Party USA, whose members swore an oath not only to the Soviet Union but to “the triumph of Soviet power in the U.S..”</blockquote>

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INTERVIEW (Part I): Swedish Author Johan Norberg On The Devastating Impact Of Socialism, And What It Could Cost The U.S.

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WATCH: Cuban Immigrant Warns Americans About ‘Communists’ Trying To Take Over U.S.

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Black Lives Matter Leader’s Campaign To Cancel Capitalism Shaped By Marxist Upbringing

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WATCH: Bernie Doubles Down On Defending Communist Murderer Fidel Castro, China

USSR Viewed ‘Socialist’ Bernie As Someone They Could ‘Exploit’ To Push ‘Propaganda,’ Report Says

Communist Cuba Praises Bernie Sanders On Front Page Of State-Run Newspaper

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WATCH: Bernie Praises Brutal Communist Dictator Again: ‘Truth Is Truth’; Fact-Check: Here’s The Real Truth

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High School Class Shows Slide Of Trump Next To Nazi And Communist Symbols

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INTERVIEW (Part I): Swedish Author Johan Norberg On The Devastating Impact Of Socialism, And What It Could Cost The U.S.

Top Pollster: Only 45% Of Americans Would Vote For A Socialist For President

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