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The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism. Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)." "The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online encyclopedia explains. The slogan "Forward!" reflected the conviction of...

MSNBC obliterated the notion of separating cable-news hosts and their political activism when the network brass gave Rev. Al Sharpton a nightly show two years ago. It was just another day at the office when Sharpton held a rabble-rousing rally for Trayvon Martin in the afternoon and then covered it on his show hours later. But Saturday's rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial celebrating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's March on Washington was the most dramatic conflict of interest yet. Sharpton organized the rally (with Martin Luther King III), and MSNBC aired huge chunks of it...

A 29-year-old former CIA worker and current defense contractor employee has come forward as the source of the National Security Agency leaks to The Guardian newspaper: The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell. The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his...

MSNBC’s newest ad features weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry unwittingly -- or at least one hopes-- referencing the Communist Chinese economic program known as the “Great Leap Forward” which left an estimated 18-45 million Chinese dead. The 30-second ad featuring Ms. Perry is narrated as follows: No fight began just in the years preceding victory. The struggle for civil rights didn’t begin in the 1950s. African-Americans had been demanding representation since the 1880s. Women didn’t just start fighting for the vote in the 1920s. That began at the founding of this country. Immigrants to this country have been since its founding...

Kim Jong Un is having a good year. After taking over the leadership of North Korea from his late father Kim Jong Il, at the end of 2011, he’s solidified his control over the country, appeared on TIME’s cover and he was even named ‘Sexiest Man Alive.’ (OK, that honor was actually bestowed as a spoof in the satirical newspaper, The Onion, but a Chinese news service mistook the Onion piece for real news and the story went global.) Now, he’s gotten the most votes in TIME’s completely unscientific reader Person of the Year Poll with 5.6 million votes. Not...

We probably will never get this long-term, and since many Republicans are caving on taxes now this much needed scenario wont happen either.

SEN. RAND PAUL: I have yet another thought on how we can fix this. Why don't we let the Democrats pass whatever they want? If they are the party of higher taxes, all the Republicans vote present and let the Democrats raise taxes as high as they want to raise them, let Democrats in the Senate raise taxes, let the president sign it and then make them own the tax increase. And when the economy stalls, when the economy sputters, when people lose their jobs, they know which party to blame, the party of high taxes. Let's don't be the...

White House sources are telling Democratic reporters that the president is willing to go over the so-called “fiscal cliff” if GOP leaders don’t agree to his demand for higher tax rates on the wealthy without substantive spending cuts. A political deadlock would mean an automatic tax increase for middle-class and wealthy Americans on January 1, and the opportunity for Obama and the Democrats to push a tax-cutting bill for middle-class voters in 2013, say the White House officials, who leaked the claim to two liberal columnists. The first of two December 3 leaks came via the left-wing Mother Jones Magazine...

In the era whose secret he uncovered, a journalist's office would have looked just like the one where Yang Jisheng works now. The tiled floor, the grimy window panes, the desk piled two feet high with papers, envelopes and books. The Mao-era radiators. The cigarette ash and the dust. Under Mao Zedong, Yang's good fortune was to find a job as a reporter with China's state-run Xinhua news agency. His misfortune had been to see his father die of hunger in 1961, at the height of the famine that killed an estimated 36 million people: "When my dad died, I...

The last ballots in the presidential election were cast more than two weeks ago. But votes in 37 states, and the District of Columbia, are still being counted, with the results yet to be officially certified. President Obama’s national margin over Mitt Romney has increased as additional ballots have been added to the tally. According to the terrific spreadsheet maintained by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, Mr. Obama now leads Mr. Romney by 3.3 percentage points nationally, up from 2.5 percentage points in the count just after the election. Turnout has grown to about 127 million voters, down...

....The ability to put our government's finances in order for the long run is obviously part of getting back on our national game. We simply cannot afford four more years of fiscal stalemate. But how we achieve balance matters. If there is one pledge Obama made over and over, it is that he will tend to the rise of economic inequality, a drop in the living standards of many working Americans, the loss of well-paying jobs -- especially in manufacturing -- and curtailed access to higher education. Across ideological lines, Americans stuck in this downward spiral experience decline not as...

President Barack Obama's campaign slogan is getting a boost! Obama's campaign added an exclamation point to placards and banners bearing the campaign's motto. Instead of a stoic period at the end of the single-word slogan, the signs now read "Forward!" The president's team added the exclamation point earlier this week, just in time for Obama to kick off a marathon, 40-hour battleground state blitz. And the punctuation jolt is expected to stick around through the campaign's final days, including his rally Saturday in New Hampshire. Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said the campaign pumped up the slogan to reflect "the stakes...

This is perhaps the most lucid, even-handed, and convincing examination to date of the threat that President Obama - and his potential reelection - poses to our republic. No one who reads I Am the Change will come away thinking this election is about the economy. In truth, this election pits America's founding principles against Obama's efforts to transform them. Obama noted as much in October 2008, declaring in a rare moment of candor, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Kesler cautions: "Those words mean this will be a different country when he's...

Quincy (MA) says a mural blending President Barack Obama with Jimi Hendrix must go. A resident complained about the mural, painted on the side of the Presidents Rock Club says it does violate the rules. Should it stay or go? The owner of the restaurant will join Phantom Gourmet LIVE at 11 a.m. on News Talk 96.9. Stream via the LISTEN LIVE Facebook tab.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged to redouble his efforts to create a socialist system if re-elected in Sunday's election, saying the next six-year term would bring bigger changes. Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has increased the government's role in the economy and has nationalized private businesses including cement plants, banks and retail stores.

New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism. Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)." "The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Confronting global tumult and Muslim anger, President Barack Obama exhorted world leaders Tuesday to stand fast against violence and extremism, arguing that protecting religious rights and free speech must be a universal responsibility and not just an American obligation. "The impulse towards intolerance and violence may initially be focused on the West, but over time it cannot be contained," Obama warned the U.N. General Assembly in an urgent call to action underscored by the high stakes for all nations.

The Oval Office isn't the place to learn on the job. That was the line from both Hillary Clinton and John McCain in 2008. In fairness, that's always the argument the more experienced candidate uses against the less experienced candidate (just ask Mitt Romney). But Barack Obama seemed a special case, easily among the least experienced major-party nominees in U.S. history. A Pew poll in August 2008 found that the biggest concern voters had with Obama fell under the category of "personal abilities and experience." In a "change" year, Americans swallowed those concerns and voted for the change candidate. Four...