Cross posted from New Zeal Blog

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders may have a Communist Party USA agent in his camp.

The person in question is Mike Bayer, who is currently serving as Treasurer of Bernie Sanders’ Vermont Progressive Party.

The Senator from Vermont, is a self proclaimed socialist and proud of it.

As a student in Chicago, Sanders was active in the Young Peoples Socialist League and has a decades old relationship with America’s largest marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America.

It was in conjunction with D.S.A. that Sanders formed, in 1991, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, now a more than eighty strong alliance of far left Senators and Congressmen.

Mike Bayer’s closeness to Senator Sanders, however I takes things to a new level. While Bayer is no longer the open communist he once was, there is evidence that he is acting as a spy on Sanders’ Party and may be be some kind of liaison man or agent-of-influence for the Communist Party.

Bayer has lived in Vermont since 1996, working as Chief Financial Officer of Vermont Legal Aid. He has been a leader in the leftist Vermont Progressive Party, since its earliest days.

Currently Bayer is running for the position of State Auditor of Accounts for Vermont, on the Progressive Party ticket. The position is currently held by Republican, Thomas M. Salmon.

Before moving to Vermont, Bayer was for many years, Indiana District organizer of the Communist Party USA and a regular contributor to the Party paper Peoples Daily World/ Peoples Weekly World.

Since working with Sanders’ Progressive Party, Bayer has downplayed his communism, but did attend the 2001, Communist Party USA 27th National Convention in Milwaukee.

He is almost certainly still a Party member today. Certainly the Party hasn’t forgotten Mike Bayer, or the regular updates he provides them on Progressive Party affairs.

While the Communist Party works mainly through the Democratic Party, in a few states they will work with influential third parties, which have a real prospect of electoral success. New York’s Working Families Party and the Vermont Progressive Party being the best examples.

According to a Communist Party USA report on the 2002 elections;

A more advanced aspect of political independence is pro-worker electoral formations outside the Democratic Party. A growing example is the Working Families Party, which has established itself in New York, doubled its vote in two years time, and is now expanding into Connecticut and other states. Election law in Connecticut does not allow petitioning candidates to run on more than one line, so the tactic is to run as many as 60 candidates for State Representative around the state with the goal of getting at least one percent of the vote and winning minor party status in those districts. Then in the next election, the Working Families Party can cross-endorse candidates in other Parties who adopt the Working Families program. Western Connecticut Labor Council president Blair Bertaccini will be one of those candidates.

In Vermont, going beyond Bernie Sanders, is the new Vermont Progressive Party, which received 10% of the vote for governor and won 4 representatives in the last election. Mike Bayer sits on their state committee.

Blair Bertaccini, incidentally, is a long time Communist Party USA member, who has been less vocal about his Marxism-Leninism, since becoming active in the W.F.P.

From a report to the National Committee of the Communist Party USA November 16, 2002;

The Progressive Party in Vermont ran Anthony Polina for Lieutenant Governor. He got 25% of the vote, up from 9.5% two years ago. He campaigned for a tax surcharge on the wealthy, replacing property taxes with broad-based taxes to fund public education, and a single payer health care system. He was endorsed by the Vermont AFL-CIO. The campaign was a collaborative effort with Bernie Sanders and inspired a high voter turnout. Mike Bayer reports that the lack of program by the Democratic candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor led to their defeat.

Note that Mike Bayer is reporting on V.P.P. affairs back to the highest body of the Communist Party USA.

On December 3 2006, People’s Weekly World readers celebrating the results of the Nov. 7 elections, with banquets and dinners in various places across the country.

In Connecticut, guests packed the New Haven People’s Center to “Carry the People’s Election Victories Forward”…

Michael Bayer, treasurer of the Vermont Progressive Party, spoke about left Independent Bernie Sanders’ election to the U.S. Senate as a fighter for working-class people. Bayer also stressed the continuing need to pressure Congress for universal health care, minimum wage increases, the right to belong to a union and the return of U.S. troops home from Iraq.

The event was described this way, in an earlier edition of Peoples Weekly World:

Special guest Michael Bayer, state treasurer of Vermont’s Progressive Party, will address “Building Independent Political Action on behalf of Working Families.” The Progressive Party was inspired by Congressman Bernie Sanders, who is a founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and is newly elected U.S. Senator from Vermont.

The event will celebrate a year of activism against the war in Iraq and for immigrant rights and workers’ rights, reflected in major get out the vote efforts by labor and community groups which changed control of Congress. Projections will be made for next steps to change the direction of the country and achieve an end to the war, good jobs and health care.

The program, to be held at the New Haven People’s Center, 37 Howe Street, will include poetry, music, an international holiday gift table and a home-cooked light supper. The annual reception is hosted by the People’s Weekly World in Connecticut on the occasion of the 87th anniversary of the Communist Party USA.

Clearly Mike Bayer is interested in more than reporting on Bernie Sanders’ people to the Communist Party. Bayer is interested in policy.

“universal health care, minimum wage increases, the right to belong to a union and the return of U.S. troops home from Iraq.”

This is all Communist Party policy. It is also largely V.P.P. policy. Is Mike Bayer’s main responsibility inside the V.P.P. to ensure that the “Communist Party line” is adhered to?

Is it also to make sure that Bernie Sanders also pushes the appropriate “line” in the U.S. Senate and through the Congressional Progressive Caucus?

This is a key point. Modern American communism, is not about atom bomb spies, terrorists or bomb throwers. It is about achieving “social change” by getting the Democrats to adopt communist policies and selling them as their own to the American voter.

Revolution, by stealth, using the Democrats, Working Families Party and Vermont Progressive Party to promote communist programs, is the modern face of U.S. Marxism-Leninism.

Mike Bayer is ideally placed to assist with this process.

Does Bernie Sanders realize that he is working closely with a probable agent of the Communist Party USA? Its very hard to believe he doesn’t.

In November 1989 Sanders addressed the 10th national conference of the Communist Party front U.S. Peace Council – “End The Cold War Fund Human Needs” – in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1997, Sanders co-sponsored H.R. 950, the Job Creation and Infrastructure Restoration Act. This Bill was introduced at the request of the National Labor Coalition for Public Works Jobs – which was led by members, or supporters of the Communist Party USA.

The Communist Party USA has strong ties to China, Cuba and other hostile powers. Is it of concern that a long time senior cadre of that Party is working in close proximity to a serving U.S. Senator?

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I have long contended that the Washington D.C. based Institute for Policy Studies is a key component of the movement that put president Barack Obama into the White House.

The I.P.S. provides key policy ideas for the Obama administration, but it also coordinates many key elements of the U.S. left behind the Obama movement.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is an I.P.S. trustee and editor of the leftist journal The Nation.

She is the co-editor of Taking Back America – And Taking Down The Radical Right (2004) and most recently of Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover.

She is a also frequent contributor to MSNBC, CNN and ABC’s This Week.

Katrina vanden Heuvel serves on the board of the far left Institute for America’s Future and she also serves on the board of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the World Policy Institute.

She is also a member of the highly influential Council on Foreign Relations and is also connected to George Soros‘ far left leaning Open Society institute

In her younger days Katrina vanden Heuvel was co-editor (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers (Norton, 1989) and also co-edited Vyi i Myi, a Russian-language feminist newsletter.

Given her positions of responsibility on the the U.S. left, it is only natural that vanden Heuvel should attempt to address the biggest problem currently facing U.S. communists, socialists and progressives. That is;

How to maintain the leftist unity that brought Barack Obama to power and use its influence and muscle to maintain enough support to enable the president to implement his full radical agenda?

The U.S. left has been fracturing in recent months as many of its more radical elements are dissatisfied with what they regard as a slow pace of change under Obama.

On August 15, 2010, vanden Heuvel wrote an article for the Washingtonpost.com, entitled “The ‘Principled Left’ Obama Needs”.

When Barack Obama embarked on what most political insiders saw as an audacious campaign for the presidency, the question was whether a newly-elected senator from Illinois could entice Democrats to consider a contender other than a former first lady who proposed to be the first woman president and a former nominee for vice president who was saying important things about the growing economic divide in America. What ultimately won him the Democratic nomination in 2008 was a decision by the principled left—professional and amateur—that the one leading candidate who had expressed blunt opposition to the war in Iraq before it began had shown better judgment than Hillary Clinton or John Edwards.

So it was that an exercise in political purism by the broad left put Obama on the path to the presidency. Now that Obama is president, however, his press secretary derides the “professional left” for being too pure in its demands on the White House. In point of fact, Robert Gibbs is wrong; at the most critical point in President Obama’s tenure so far—when Congress was deciding how to vote on a health-care bill that Republicans predicted would be his “Waterloo”—the most left-wing members of Congress and their allies (professional and amateur) across America rallied to support a measure that was deeply disappointing to many of them....

It is staggeringly simplistic for Gibbs to blame the “professional left” for the slew of troubles this White House currently confronts as much as seems to have. The left isn’t responsible for the administration’s insufficient response to the economic and social challenges the financial crisis has posed. The left isn’t responsible for a dysfunctional system that allows the minority party to obstruct with impunity—and special interests and big corporate money to dictate legislative policy. Nor is the left responsible for the fact that a majority of Americans no longer believe the Afghanistan war is worth fighting. (It is actually-New Zeal)

As historian Michael Kazin likes to say, “If the left were not somewhat unhappy with Barack Obama, it would not be much of a left.” Maybe Gibbs needs a history lesson on the relationship of the left to presidential administrations. Both FDR and LBJ, for example, had to respond to insurgencies on their left—labor and civil-rights movements—and in so doing were pushed to adopt bold progressive reforms.

Of course, these are different times, for America and its left. Ruth Marcus makes a credible point when she suggests that some on the left blame Obama for the failure to enact sweeping transformative reforms in less than two years. Blaming Obama is simplistic. After all, didn’t the left—old and new—typically use a power structure analysis to explain the limits of democracy in the U.S.? How is it, then, that it hoped Obama would override all that, and do so in less than two years?

The left I know and am a part of is not some monolithic entity. There are debates and divisions. I am of the school that believes the system is rigged against progressive change, and that great periods of change—the New Deal and the Great Society—took place after years of effort and many setbacks. I also believe that we on the left need to be as clear-eyed, tough and pragmatic about Obama as he and his team are about us. Playing what I call the betrayal sweepstakes—a ceaseless denunciation of the administration’s failures and missteps—doesn’t get us very far. It promotes disappointment, disempowerment and despair, which is just what our adversaries on the right seek.

As someone who would like to see Obama’s presidency succeed, I think he needs a left that engages in the same blending of principle and pragmatism that convinced progressive Democrats to choose him over Clinton and Edwards. The history of progressive change in our country leads me to believe that the left would be wise to avoid falling into either of two extremes—reflexively defensive or reflexively critical.

In the last 18 months, the left has learned the hard way that it needs to be more independent of the White House to realize the change we’re seeking. There’s now more energy being devoted to organizing, less to complaining. There is savvy organizing underway around specific issues—corporate power, filibuster reform, Medicare-for-all at the state level, stronger consumer protection—and the development of active, broad-based coalitions around those reforms that, as our history teaches us, is pretty much the only way things change in our system.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is telling the U.S. left – stop whining, get organized and unified. Push the Obama administration to make the changes you want.

Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “Great Society” saw the two greatest leaps into socialism in U.S. history.

America now stands on the verge of a third and probably final push to socialism under Obama.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is telling her troops not to blow the greatest opportunity they will ever have to fly the Red Flag over America.

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Cross-posted from the New Zeal blog.

The U.S.’s largest marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America, is about to further strengthen its hold the country’s most influential labor union – the SEIU.

After the recent resignation last week of Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, SEIU president Mary Kay Henry , announced her intention to nominate Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina to Burger’s former post, the second highest in the union, at SEIU’s next board meeting in Los Angeles.

This move will almost certainly intensify D.S.A.’s use of SEIU as a tool to push “immigration reform.” A program primarily designed, by Medina’s own admission, to bring 8 million more Latino voters to the Democratic Party.

Eliseo Medina is a long time leader of Democratic Socialists of America.

An SEIU executive vice president since 1996, Medina is the labor movement’s foremost champion of “immigrant rights.”

In 1999, he spearheaded the successful campaign to get the AFL-CIO to reverse its longtime opposition to immigrant workers. Over the past 15 years, he has also conceived and coordinated SEIU’s efforts to naturalize, register, and turn out the votes of new immigrants in California — a campaign that helped turn America’s largest state solidly Democratic — and has recently been involved in similar campaigns in Southwestern states.

Medina also was a key negotiator on behalf of labor in the immigration-reform deliberations with the Bush administration, a leader in Hispanic voter mobilization efforts for long time D.S.A. associate Barack Obama in 2008, and one of the foremost advocates for comprehensive” immigration reform” during the past two years.

As a union that represents the largely immigrant janitors in the downtowns in many of the nation’s largest cities, SEIU has played an outsize role in the immigration battles of the past 15 years. Medina has functioned externally as the union’s leading public spokesperson on the issue and internally as its chief strategist and advocate for stepped-up involvement. At the board meeting this June where Henry was elected president following the resignation of longtime President Andy Stern, the union, at Medina’s behest, committed itself to fund and wage the kind of registration and get-out-the-vote campaign in Arizona that Medina had headed up in California. The campaign that Medina has put together in Arizona mobilizes SEIU and eight other groups, employing 40 full-time canvassers, to turn out roughly 120,000 Hispanic infrequent voters this November.

Medina’s nomination was quickly seconded on Friday by Executive Vice President Gerry Hudson, (also a long time D.S.A. member) who has replaced Burger as the head of SEIU’s political operations. “A strong advocate of social unionism concerned with issues of race and gender as well as class, Hudson noted that Medina was a kindred spirit”. Medina’s ascension, he wrote, “will signal to our members and to the outside world our commitment to social justice and comprehensive immigration reform.”

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Voters in Ohio’s 10th District are well aware that their Congressman Dennis Kucinich is way, way out on the left.

After all he is a member of the far left Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Few realize however, that Dennis Kucinich is allied to members of the Communist Party USA, a party with more allegiance to China and Cuba than to the the United States of America.

Check out this official Kucinich ad from his brief 2008 presidential campaign.

The video doesn’t say so, but Bruce Bostick is no ordinary steelworker. He is a veteran of the 1969 Venceremos Brigade to Cuba and a long time Ohio and national official of the Communist Party USA.

So why would a Democratic Congressman officially accept the endorsement of a Communist Party leader?

Unfortunately, for Dennis Kucinich, this is simply par for the course.

Dennis Kucinich has reportedly been close to the Communist Party USA since his days in Cleveland Ohio council politics in the 1960s.

According to the World Socialist Web Site;

Take Kucinich first. As mayor of Cleveland in the late 1960s, he represented one of the most “left” elements in the Democratic Party during the heyday of the radical protest movement. He was closely allied with the Stalinists of the CPUSA, who still had significant influence in the working class of Cleveland, particularly in such unions as the UE and UAW. With the collapse of the protest movement and the shift to the right in American bourgeois politics, Kucinich was driven out of political life for two decades, before returning to office as a state legislator and ultimately winning a congressional seat

During Kucinich’s successful 1996 Congressional run, there was considerable controversy over his ties to Communist Party USA member Rick Nagin.

Writing in the Communist Party USA’s paper, People’s Weekly World, Ohio Communist Party chairman, Rick Nagin, detailed the campaign which led to Kucinich’s election to Congress:

The election of Dennis Kucinich in Ohio’s 10th Congressional District was a ground-breaking event demonstrating the powerful political potential of a mass, grassroots coalition led by labor.

Trade unionists and seniors provided the largest numbers of some 5,000 volunteers but many others came from Hispanic, environmental, peace and other organizations.

The Republicans reacted with fury to this open challenge to their decades of labor-baiting bully tactics. Kucinich’s program, Republican county chairman Jim Trakas announced, is “very similar to the Communist Manifesto” and is “what Lenin stood for.” Kucinich blasted this reversion to “McCarthyism.”

The smears were endlessly propagated by a right-wing talk show host who made it his mission three hours every morning to stop Kucinich. The poisonous attacks, aimed at suppressing voter turnout, caused the race to tighten considerably. In the final week before the election the focus of the Hoke campaign shifted to virulent red-baiting directed at this writer.

In what was probably a first since the beginning of the Cold War, Kucinich refused to knuckle under, calmly stating that I was one of 5,000 volunteers and declaring, “It’s Halloween and Hoke is dressing up as Joe McCarthy. Karl Marx is not running my campaign but apparently Harpo Marx is running his.”

While Kucinich would claim that Ohio Communist Party leader was only “one of 5,000 volunteers”, the Communist Party USA itself later contradicted Kucinich’s claim.

In 2005 Rick Nagin campaigned unsuccessfully in his own right for Cleveland City Council, and was heavily criticized over his Communist Party ties. Nagin had resigned as chairman of the Ohio Communist Party (but had remained a member) to take a position as executive assistant to Nelson Cintron , the first Latino in City Council and a protoge of Kucinich’s

According to the People’s Weekly World;

Nagin was continuously targeted as a member and former chairman of the Ohio Communist Party, yet his strong showing was impressive and stemmed from a number of factors….

Nagin also had seven and a half years of experience as executive assistant to Nelson Cintron Jr. who represented an adjacent ward. Furthermore, he had been a key organizer for Dennis Kucinich’s campaigns for Congress and president and for the 2004 John Kerry presidential campaign

The Communist Party USA appears to see Dennis Kucinich as a man worthy of support and someone who can be relied on to push the correct agenda in Congress.

In a 2004 report to the CPUSA National Board, the Party’s Political Action Committee chair, Joelle Fishman wrote a report on Party work in the U.S. Presidential elections. She included a comment on Dennis Kucinich and the Democratic Party National Convention.

Dennis Kucinich’s 50 delegates to the national Democratic convention, will be presenting a platform plank for a Department of Peace, voted favorably by four state conventions, including dramatically in Texas just this week. The efforts of Kucinich together with Jesse Jackson and others, to bring forward more advanced demands, will make an important contribution to the convention. A very special contribution will be made by an expectedly large number of labor union delegates who will work together in one bloc to get a strong platform for jobs, health care, and pensions.

The Communist Party USA would also be at the convention;

We project our role at the convention as distribution of the Peoples Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo and literature to delegates and in free speech areas, and participation in the Kucinich-led issue events.

Communist Party Chairman Sam Webb, wrote in a July 2007 report to the Party’s National Committee;

Finally, we should have a positive attitude toward the candidacy of Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Despite the efforts of the media to sideline him, Kucinich is emerging as a leading voice of the broad people’s coalition. He brings consistent anti-right, anti-corporate, pro-peace positions to the presidential primaries and debates. None of the other candidates can make the same claim. The more he speaks to audiences of the core forces, the better positioned the movement will be to win in 2008 and to fight the good fight in 2009.

Rick Nagin was back with Dennis Kucinich in 2008, working as Labor Coordinator for Dennis Kucinich’s successful 2008 primary campaign.

Dennis Kucinich, (center rear), endorsed Rick Nagin (second from right) in his almost successful 2009 City Council race.While Nagin stood as a Democrat, he is still unequivocally a leading member of the Communist Party.

Said Dennis Kucinich of comrade Nagin;

I’ve known Rick Nagin for more than 30 years. He’s honest, hard-working and conscientious. The people of Ward 14 have a chance to elect a Councilman who will be totally dedicated to them. What more can you ask for?

I’m proud to join with the AFL-CIO in supporting Rick Nagin

Dennis Kucinich, Congressman, 10th District.

Perhaps the voters of Ohio’s 10th District should reflect on whether they would still vote for Dennis Kucinich, if he were running as a member of the Communist Party.

Because if they wouldn’t vote for an open communist, why would they vote for a man who is almost certainly a Communist Party supporter.

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Cross posted from New Zeal Blog

Steven Charleston is Assistant Bishop of the Episcopalian Church of California.

He is a champion of “social justice” and a leader of the Church’s “liberal” wing.

According to the website of San Francisco’s Grace Church;

Steven Charleston is widely recognized as a leading proponent for justice issues and for spiritual renewal in the church in both the United States and Canada. He has been called “one of the best preachers in the Episcopal Church,” leading worship services ranging from a revival style service in Texas to Lenten Services at Harvard University. A citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Bishop Charleston was born and raised in that state in a family that has had a long history of service in the Christian Native American community. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather were ordained ministers of the Presbyterian Church, serving among the Choctaw People in rural Oklahoma.

His vocation in the church has been extensive and varied. He was the national staff officer for Native American ministries in the Episcopal Church; the Director of the Dakota Leadership Program; professor at Luther-Northwestern Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota; the Bishop of Alaska; chaplain of Trinity College in Hartford; Assistant Bishop of Connecticut; and most recently, the President and Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.

Steven Charleston has been Chair of the House of Bishops’ Justice, Peace and Integrity for Creation Task Force.

Bishop Charleston has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, BBC World News, BBC Today Programme, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, and Hannity & Colmes, and WRKO radio in Boston.

But here is an interesting and little known fact about Asst. Bishop Charleston.

In 1991, Father Steve Charleston, priest at the Holy Trinity/St. Anskar and professor at Luther-Northwestern Seminary in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, accepted an appointment as Episcopalian Bishop of Alaska.

Democratic Socialists of America, the U.S.’s largest marxist based organization, publishes a journal called Democratic Left. On page 14 of the March/April 1991 issue of this journal is the statement:

“A Native American of Choctaw descent, and a self avowed “revolutionary Christian”, [Steve] Charleston was instrumental in reviving the Democratic Socialists of America , local in the Twin Cities.”

I wonder how many of Steven Charleston’s parishioners, students, colleagues and media contacts, know of the Asst. Bishop’s marxist background?

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U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro is a powerful and influential woman…

DeLauro has been the co-chair of the House Democratic Steering Committee since 2003, where she makes committee assignments. This position gives Rep. DeLauro the power to determine the make up of powerful House Committees, to stack them with those Congressmen she deems most appropriate.

She is also a member of the far left Congressional Progressive Caucus , which may help to explain why that organization is so well represented on several powerful House Committees.

Rosa DeLauro left, Nancy Pelosi center

The representative from Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District is the second-highest ranking woman in the U.S. House, after her close friend and colleague, Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi.

Rosa DeLauro’s Congressional District is centered on the City of New Haven, which happens to be a stronghold of the Communist Party USA. For many years the Connecticut  Communist Party has been very influential in the local labor movement, “peace” movement, city government and the Democratic Party.

New Haven Peoples Center celebration

The Communist Party’s activity, is centered on the New Haven Peoples Center, (established 1937), which houses Party front groups, and hosts Party functions.

Communist Party member Al Marder is president of the Peoples Center, while his comrade Joelle Fishman serves as  a  board member.

On August 11, the Party allied  local chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans (Joelle Fishman is a board member) hosted a function to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Social Security.

Guest of honor was local Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

Rosa DeLauro cuts the anniversary cake

Listening to the first few minutes this speech, makes  its very clear that DeLauro is  familiar with many of those in attendance.

Photograher at the event , which was well covered in the Peoples World, was long time Party supporter Henry Lowendorf.

Celestino Cordova, at least a Communist Party supporter, presented DeLauro with postcards,  calling on Congress to reject any proposals to raise the retirement age or cut benefits.

Cordova serves on the City of New Haven Peace Commission with Party members Al Marder and Joelle Fishman and indicates his support for the Party paper Peoples World on his Facebook page.

In June this year, DeLauro presented Celestino Cordova with medals for his Korean War service at a ceremony at the Fair Haven Elderly Apartments community room.

Rosa DeLauro with Celestino Cordova

Rosa DeLauro may have a thing about hugging communists.

Below is a picture taken at the August 11 function Peoples center celebration, of DeLauro embracing confirmed communist Joelle Fishman.

Rosa DeLauro embraces Joelle Fishman

Unfortunately Joelle Fishman is not just any communist. Fishman chairs the Connecticut Communist Party and is a member of the Communist Party USA  National Board.

Most importantly however she is Chair of the Party’s Political Action Commission. This is an highly important and influential post.

Fishman has the responsibility for organizing Party support for “progressive” Democratic Party candidates at the state, congressional, senate and presidential levels.

This means that Fishman is very important to the Democratic Party, as she has the power to influence where communist led unions, “community groups”, churches and “peace” groups throw their money and manpower.

The fact that Fishman clearly has a  personal relationship with a key leader of the Democratic Party should be raising eyebrows and ringing alarm bells.

Like virtually all Communist Party USA members, Joelle Fishman actively campaigned for Party “friend” Barack Obama in 2008.

Joelle Fishman writing in the Connecticut Communist Party’s CT People Before Profits Blog November 2 2008;

It was enjoyable to knock on doors and find voters who were enthusiastic and inspired by Obama’s historic candidacy, like the teacher who said her whole family was spreading the word. There were several families of divided opinion and others who declined to say. The most challenging conversations were with voters who did not want to support Obama because they were caught up in the lies and rumors undermining his integrity and patriotism. Those who were ready to discuss appreciated the comparison of McCain’s anti-worker record with Obama’s near perfect score.

It was exciting to be part of the quarter million union volunteers across the country, the biggest election mobilization in labor’s history, which has influenced the political climate in working class swing states and districts, laying the basis for a much larger labor movement.

The example set by labor’s top leaders talking directly with white sisters and brothers about how Obama represents their best chance for a secure future will have a lasting impact…

This year the chance to uproot ultra-right corporate political dominance is much greater. Voters want to be part of history. They see that the policies of the Bush administration, which McCain-Palin would continue, are bankrupting the country and endangering the world.

Labor’s giant effort along with massive organizing by African American, Latino, women’s and youth groups has turned historically Republican states’ House and Senate seats into battlegrounds, including the Senate seat in New Hampshire.

A landslide victory for Obama and Congress will open the door for big new struggles to organize workers into unions and place the needs of working families front and center in this economic crisis.

Incidentally Joelle Fishman is also the daughter-in-law of the late Victor Perlo, an economist and Party member who spied for the Soviet Union inside the U.S. government in the 1930s and ’40s.

Below is a video of Joelle Fishman speaking at the New Haven Peoples Center at the Communist Party’s 2009 Amistad award dinner. Listen to Fishman praise Barack Obama and the communist effort to elect him.

At the end,  Fishman hands out awards to Party members Brian Steinberg and Dorothy Johnson on behalf of the Connecticut Communist Party.

Rosa DeLauro is no stranger to communist causes.

In the 1980s she was executive director for Countdown ‘87 a national campaign to stop U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras – who were then fighting the Marxist-Leninist led Sandinistas.

A decade later, Congresswoman DeLauro was a co-sponsor of H.R. 950, the Job Creation and Infrastructure Restoration Act of 1997 . This Bill was promoted by the Los Angeles Labor Coalition for Public Works Jobs and the New York Coalition for Public Works Jobs – both of which were led by Communist Party USA members or supporters.

In recent times DeLauro has co-sponsored,  H. Res. (House Resolution) 68, calling for the U.S. to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This Resolution is supported by several Communist Party USA influenced organizations, including the Greater New Haven Peace Council,  which is led by Party linked activists Al Marder and Henry Lowendorf.

The Greater New Haven Peace Council  is affiliated to the Communist Party initiated U.S. Peace Council which is in turn affiliated to the communist dominated and former Soviet front World Peace Council.

New Haven’s Al Marder is a vice president of the World Peace Council.

Rosa DeLauro clearly has ties to the Communist Party USA, including to Joelle Fishman, the Party official specifically charged with organizing support for “approved” Democratic Party candidates.

We should  also not forget that the Communist Party USA maintains close ties to several U.S. adversaries including the governments of China, Cuba, Venezuela and with the still powerful Russian Communist Party – many of which have records of spying on the United States, or attempting to influence internal U.S. policy

DeLauro has the ear of the Speaker of the House and has the power to influence the make up of Congressional Committees.

Should her ties to Joelle Fishman and the Communist Party Party USA,  be a cause for concern?

Are there security implications here?

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Cross posted from New Zeal Blog

Several current or recent members of Congress, including Neil Abercrombie, Mary Jo Kilroy, Jerry Nadler and Bob Filner have close ties to America’s largest marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America.

Another to add to the growing list is Jan Schakowsky.

The Illinois Democrat, a member of the far left Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been close to D.S.A., or its preceding organization, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee since the 1970s.

Schakowsky was recruited to help with the famous Chicago Grape Boycott by a young United Farm Workers union leader named Eliseo Medina.

A lifelong socialist, Medina is today executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union and an honorary chair of Democratic Socialists of America.

Medina and Schakowsky crossed paths again at Chicago D.S.A.’s 2004 Debs-Thomas-Harrington Dinner.

Eliseo Medina was honored for his union work at the dinner while Jan Schakowsky was keynote speaker.

From Chicago DSA’s New Ground;

Carl Shier introduced the second honoree, SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina. Shier first met Medina when Medina was a young man sent to Chicago by Cesar Chavez to organize the UFW’s grape boycott in Chicago on $5 dollars a week. Medina worked miracles (including roping young suburban women like Jan Schakowsky into the effort).

When Jan Schakowsky ran for Congress in 1998 she was endorsed by Chicago D.S.A. – as was full fledged D.S.A. member and currently serving Democratic Congressman Danny Davis.

Jan Schakowsky, U.S. House of Representatives, 9th District

Jan Schakowsky is running for Sid Yates old position. Like Danny Davis, she’s an old friend of DSA and a real fighter.

Jan Schakowsky was herself honored at Chicago D.S.A’s May 2000 Dinner, for her “work in Congress and the community.” Schakowsky received her award from no less a dignitary than Chicago D.S.A. icon, the since deceased Carl Marx Shier.

In your early days as a consumer advocate, you began the fight for freshness dates on products sold in supermarkets. As Program Director of Illinois Public Action, you fought for energy reform and stronger protection from toxic chemicals. As Executive Director of the Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens, you helped organize across the state for universal and comprehensive health care, for lowering the cost of prescription drugs, for financial protection for spouses of residents in nursing homes.

As an Illinois State Representative, you served your constituency well for four terms. You were an outstanding Chair of the Labor and Commerce Committee. You served on the Human Services, Appropriation, Health Care, and Electric Deregulation Committees. You were a Democratic Party Floor Leader and served as Secretary of the Conference of Women Legislators.

Your dedication to the people was rewarded by a great grassroots campaign, with hundreds of street volunteers, when you chose to run for the United States House of Representatives. Your first term in Congress has been outstanding. You have been an outstanding voice for seniors, labor union members, women and children. You have continued your advocacy of universal health care through your membership on the Health Care and Medicare Task Forces. Through your work, you were appointed to a leadership whip position.

Your work and your life honors the memory of Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington and continues their legacy of struggle for social justice.

For your dedication to the fight for a just society, the Debs – Thomas – Harrington Dinner Committee hereby presents to you its annual award on this 5th day of May, 2000.

Jan Schakowsky also attended the The 35th Annual Eugene V. Debs – Norman Thomas – Michael Harrington Dinner on May 7th 1993.

In 2002 Schakowsky showed Chicago D.S.A. some love, with this paid ad in that years Debs Dinner program.

Jan Schakowsky has been one Congresss’ most loyal and consistent Barack Obama supporters. Unsurprizing perhaps as President Obama also has a long history with Democratic Socialists of America.

At the 2004 46th Annual Eugene V Debs – Norman Thomas – Michael Harrington Dinner in Chicago, Jan Schakowsky told the story of a meeting in Washington with U.S. president George Bush.

The Congressional Black Caucus had demanded a meeting with President Bush to discuss the situation in Haiti.

Schakowsky had also been invited because of her strong interest in the issue.

According to Chicago D.S.A’.s New Ground:

Bush finally, at the insistence of caucus members, made it to this meeting and spent enough time to display his ignorance of the issue. He noticed Jan, a lone white face, and seemed to “jump back” when he saw her button. Osama? No, Mr. President. Barack Obama, and you’ll be hearing from him when he becomes the Senator from Illinois.

That’s what socialism’s all about, helping each other out and sticking together.

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Cross posted from New Zeal Blog

A list of seventy alleged American Socialist Party members has been winging its way around the internet.

Unfortunately, while most of those listed are indeed socialists, there is no such organization as the American Socialist Party. There is a small Socialist Party USA and the U.S.’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America – which works largely inside the Democratic Party.

The list actually appears to be a membership roster of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

This organization was formed in 1991 by openly socialist independent Congressman Bernie Sanders, the far left Institute for Policy Studies, and Democratic Socialists of America.

Because the Progressive Caucus was hosted for many years on the D.S.A. website, some have claimed that all Progressive Caucus membership D.S.A. membership are synonymous. That may possibly have been the case, in the early years, but I have seen no evidence that it still applies.

What is beyond doubt is that most Progressive Caucus members are indeed socialists. In a European country, most would be comfortable in either the Socialist, Communist or green parties.

Several current or former Progressive Caucus members appear to have been members of D.S.A. including Neil Abercrombie, Danny K. Davis, Ron Dellums, Jerry Nadler and Major Owens.

Some members like Barbara Lee and Luis Gutierrez have been involved in Marxist-Leninist parties.

Many others have ties to D.S.A., the Communist Party USA, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, the Institute for Policy Studies, or other far left groups.

Many also have maintained ties to Cuba, Venezuela, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or other anti U.S. regimes.

Prominent recent former members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Obama’s Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Obama Transition Team member and former Democratic Party whip, David Bonior. Since leaving the house, David Bonior has formally joined D.S.A.

At more than 70 members, the Progressive Caucus is the most powerful bloc in the U.S. Congress, leading several powerful committees, including Judiciary (John Conyers) and until recently, Ways & Means (Charles Rangel).

It is also important to note that many far left Senators and Congressmen and NOT members of the Progressive Caucus – Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa and Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy (one time D.S.A. member) from Ohio being good examples.

If you follow the blue links on this page it will lead you to biographies of all those listed on this post, from our sister site KeyWiki – our online encyclopedia of the American left. The KeyWiki Congressional Progressive Caucus page also lists former members of the organization.

Many profiles are still only only “stubs”, but some are comprehensive. We welcome contributions from readers to “flesh them out”. We also welcome more volunteer KeyWiki editors and contributors. Contact details here

Check out the socialists in your Congress!

The current members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are as follows:

Co-Chairs

• Raul Grijalva (AZ-07)
• Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)

Vice Chairs

• Diane Watson (CA-33)
• Keith Ellison (MN-05)
• Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
• Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
• Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
• Donna Edwards (MD-04)
• Alan Grayson (FL-08)

Senate Members

• Bernie Sanders (VT)
• Tom Udall (NM)
• Roland Burris (IL)

House Members

• Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)
• Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
• Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)
• Robert Brady (PA-01)
• Corrine Brown (FL-03)
• Michael Capuano (MA-08)
• André Carson (IN-07)
• Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
• Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
• William (Lacy) Clay (MO-01)
• Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
• Steve Cohen (TN-09)
• John Conyers (MI-14)
• Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
• Danny Davis (IL-07)
• Peter DeFazio (OR-04)
• Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
• Sam Farr (CA-17)
• Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
• Bob Filner (CA-51)
• Barney Frank (MA-04)
• Marcia Fudge (OH-11)
• Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
• John Hall (NY-19)
• Phil Hare (IL-17)
• Alcee Hastings (FL-23)
• Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
• Michael Honda (CA-15)
• Jesse Jackson Jr (IL-02)
• Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
• Hank Johnson (GA-04)
• Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
• Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
• Barbara Lee (CA-09)
• John Lewis (GA-05)
• David Loebsack (IA-02)
• Ben Lujan (NM-3)
• Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
• Edward Markey (MA-07)
• Jim McDermott (WA-07)
• James McGovern (MA-03)
• George Miller (CA-07)
• Gwen Moore (WI-04)
• Jim Moran (VA-08)
• Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
• Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL)
• John Olver (MA-01)
• Frank Pallone (NJ-06)
• Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
• Donald Payne (NJ-10)
• Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
• Jared Polis (CO-02)
• Charles Rangel (NY-15)
• Laura Richardson (CA-37)
• Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
• Bobby Rush (IL-01)
• Linda Sanchez (CA-47)
• Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
• José Serrano (NY-16)
• Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
• Pete Stark (CA-13)
• Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
• John Tierney (MA-06)
• Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
• Maxine Waters (CA-35)
• Mel Watt (NC-12)
• Henry Waxman (CA-30)
• Peter Welch (VT-AL)

Every effort should be made to vote out as many as possible CPCers in the November mid term elections.

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Cross posted from New Zeal Blog

Bob Filner is a Democratic Congressman for California’s 51st District. Without doubt he is one of the most far left members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is not surprizing, as Bob Filner’s father, Joseph Filner, was once a leading member of the Communist Party USA.

In the 1940s Joseph Filner, when not changing baby Bob’s red diapers, was running a bakery business and serving as secretary of the Pittsburgh Communist Party.

After WW2, Joseph Filner entered the scrap metal business. He founded the Stainless and Alloy Corporation of America, eventually expanding its scope of operations worldwide and becoming a major agent for Soviet products and technology in the West.

One of Joseph Filner’s early business colleagues was Stanley Levison, a secret Communist and treasurer and money launderer for the Party.

Joseph Filner never forgot his socialist roots. In his later years, he used his wealth to create a charitable foundation, the Frieda Foundation, through which he gave to many leftist causes, especially programs to “rid the world of the threat of nuclear annihilation.”

In the 1980s Joseph Filner was a member of the far left American Committee on East-West Accord, a Washington, D.C.based tax-exempt “independent educational organization”, with the stated aim of “improving East/West relations, with special focus on U.S.-Soviet relations.”

Joseph Filner also endorsed the Kennedy-Hatfield Nuclear Freeze Resolution which was introduced in the Senate on March 10, 1982.

After beginning adult life as an early ’60s student radical, and as a college professor Bob Filner decided to run for Congress.

One of the people who campaigned for him was Andrew Young, then the far left mayor of Atlanta, Ga. Young remembered, Joseph Filner well. At one point, he told a campaign rally that he supported Bob Filner’s candidacy not only because of their shared Democratic viewpoints, but also, quite simply, “because of his daddy.

Bob Filner entered congress in 1990 and a year later was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a grouping of far left Congressmen organized by openly socialist independent Congressman Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialists of America.

Bob Filner went on to form a very close relationship with D.S.A. – the U.S’s largest Marxist-based organization, which endures to this day.

In August 1996, over 300 people attended the San Diego Hearing on Economic Insecurity, “a forum intended to hammer home to a message to our elected officials that working America is hurting and to demand that government take corrective action.”

Bob Filner addressing the San Diego Hearing on Economic Insecurity

For two hours, a panel that included Congressman Bob Filner (D), California Assemblywoman Denise Ducheny, and five candidates who may soon hold seats in Congress and the California Assembly listened while a steady stream of local people told their stories. Testimony came from workers, seniors, welfare mothers, men and women seeking work and students soon to join … “

The Hearing, involved groups such as the Gray Panthers, the ultra-radical National Lawyers Guild, Welfare Warriors and labor unions, but was initiated as a project of San Diego Democratic Socialists of America.

However the main work in organizing and publicizing the hearing was carried out by DSA members…San Diego DSA realized that an effort of this magnitude needed a full time paid organizer. We were fortunate to be able to hire Stephanie Jennings, a veteran supporter and organizer of progressive action…. Stephanie kept in close touch with Boston DSA, with Alan Charney and Michele Rossi and DSA national office, with Chris Riddiough in our Washington DC office and with Tim Parks, Eric Vega and Duane Campbell in other California chapters.

Bob Filner even donated his campaign office to DSA phone bankers, soliciting support for the event;

Congressman Bob Filner donated the use of his campaign office for a week of nightly phone banking by DSA volunteers..

In November 1999, Bob Filner attended D.S.A’s national convention, conveniently held in his home town of San Diego, where he had the honor of introducing his old comrade Bernie Sanders to the assembled socialists.

In 2004 San Diego Democratic Socialists of America supported Filner’s successful Congressional race.

Meanwhile, San Diego DSAers are involved in progressive Democrat Bob Filner’s 51st CD reelection race

DSA supported Filner again in 2006.

San Diego DSA produced an email recommendation sheet for the membership covering all races and propositions on the November ballot, a popular tradition of the local that people ask for as elections approach. Activist members there went precinct walking for Representative Bob Filner.

In 2008 Bob Filner attended a San Diego DSA function organized for City Council candidate Stephen Whitburn.

SD-DSA held a forum with about 20 participants on “DSA, the Left, and the Presidential Election.” They organized a fundraising event in April for City Council candidate Stephen Whitburn, which was attended by Congressman Bob Filner and raised about $1000

On Oct. 26, 2009, Bob Filner spoke alongside fellow Congressional Progressive Caucus members, Jared Polis and the D.S.A. affiliated Jan Schakowsky at the JStreet 2009 Conference.

JStreeters Bob Filner and Jared Polis

JStreet is a leftist Jewish organization that, according to its website, “was founded to change the dynamics of American politics and policy on Israel and the Middle East”.

JStreet has several Democratic Socialists of America members within its leadership and is regarded by its opponents as one of the most dangerous anti Israel groups in the country. They charge that JStreet’s real purpose is not to help Israel, but to help steer U.S. foreign policy away from supporting Israel to the benefit of that country’s Palestinian and Arab enemies.

In February 2010, the first JStreet-sponsored congressional mission toured Israel, Jordan and Palestinian-controlled areas. Five members of Congress participated in the tour; Lois Capps, Bill Delahunt, Bob Filner, Mary Jo Kilroy and Donald Payne.

It was stated that the mission “will meet with Israeli government and opposition leaders as well as key regional leaders, including Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The delegation will travel widely in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan taking a close look at the situation on the ground through the eyes of policy makers and civil society leaders.”

All members of this delegation came from the far left side of Congress and one, Ohio Democrat freshman Mary Jo Kilroy, has been a confirmed member of Democratic Socialists of America.

This was not Bob Filner’s first effort at international bridge building.

In February 2002 a delegation of leftist California Democratic Party Congressmen and women including Sam Farr, Diane Watson, Bob Filner and Mike Thompson, together with singer Carole King, visited Havana as part of the “latest effort to change U.S. policy toward Cuba.”

Carole King serenaded Fidel Castro with “You’ve Got a Friend” at a weekend dinner, replete with wines from Napa and Sonoma.

The delegates said their dinner with Castro at the Palace of the Revolution stretched from 9 p.m. Sunday until about 4:30 a.m. Monday. During the meal, King also performed a new song, “Love Makes the World.”

Daddy Joseph Filner, wherever he is now, is surely proud that baby Bob has yet to change those red diapers.

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Rick Nagin is both a leader of the Communist Party USA and a leading activist in the Ohio Democratic Party.

Rick Nagin, center, campaigning with congressman Dennis Kucinich, 2009

In this article in the latest Peoples World, Comrade Nagin surveys the current political balance of forces within the U.S. and concludes – yes indeed, a socialist America is definitely possible.

Given the unprecedented economic, political and military power of the U.S. ruling class, it may seem like a pipedream to believe that working people can ever take over.

And yet, there are good reasons to believe the foundations of this colossus may not be that strong…

An especially significant factor in the growing challenge to corporate power is the re-emergence of organized labor with militant and class-conscious leadership. This was signaled by the election in 1995 of John Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as president of the AFL-CIO, ending decades of conservative leadership that actively collaborated with Cold War anti-communism and offered scant resistance as the corporations suppressed wages and sent jobs abroad.

Labor now has become the magnet around which a broad and growing coalition of progressive forces has emerged. This has taken organizational form in struggles for jobs, health care reform, the right of workers to form unions, the defense of social security and, especially, elections. In fact, labor was critical to Democratic electoral victories in Congress in 2006 and the 2008 Presidential election…

It was the alliance between liberal and centrist Democrats, the coalition of progressive forces including labor, the African-American community and youth as well as many independents that enabled Barack Obama to be elected. The right-wing, ousted after 30 years of increasingly extremist rule refuses to accept the result of this election and has resorted to unprecedented disruption aimed at destroying the Obama presidency and breaking up the Obama coalition. They hope racism, anti-immigrant prejudice, threats of violence and anger over the continuing economic crisis can be channeled into Republican votes. They have launched and financed the so-called tea party movement raising the specter of fascism.

Labor and its progressive allies recognize the danger and are mobilizing to defend democratic, civil, economic and social rights from the right-wing threat. Once again the progressive coalition is allied with the Democrats as the only way to defeat the ultra-right. The focal point has become the November midterm elections with the aim of holding the line, minimizing setbacks and, where possible, making gains.

Having held power since 1980, the right-wing is deeply entrenched in all branches of government particularly in military, foreign policy and intelligence circles. It also controls major sections of the media, think-tanks and religious groups. Its power will not be destroyed in a few elections and sessions of Congress. We are in for a protracted battle.

The ramifications of this battle go far beyond electoral and legislative politics. Defeat of the right wing of the U.S. ruling class would be a major, possibly decisive, blow to corporate power and set the stage for far-reaching advances, including the possibility of socialism. In other words, the defeat of the ultra-right is both an immediate political and long-range strategic necessity for the working class and broad sections of the people.

The historical experience of countries that established socialism in the 20th century shows that the working class had first to ally with sections of the capitalist class in order to defeat the most reactionary forces. Only then was it possible to overcome the capitalists as a whole.

The building of a multi-class coalition of democratic forces to defeat the ultra-right is a necessary stage in achieving socialism in our country.

The last few sentences are key – “the working class had first to ally with sections of the capitalist class in order to defeat the most reactionary forces. Only then was it possible to overcome the capitalists as a whole”

This is not good news for the Democrats, the “green businesses”, the armies of consultants, “progressive” business people and “new media” entrepreneurs who have jumped on the Obama/Communist Party bandwagon.

It means, that when the time is right, they will be crushed just as mercilessly as the rest of us.

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