President Hillary in 2016? While some see this as inevitable, color me skeptical.
Hillary has a soft underbelly of supporting Marxist groups and sympathizers. A part of that underbelly was exposed last week when she endorsed Bill de Blasio for New York City mayor. The Democratic nominee is considered the odds-on favorite for the top spot in the Big Apple. The former first lady rarely gives her endorsement, so this one is curious indeed.
Why did she go the extra mile and give this man her stamp of approval?
Clinton and de Blasio go way back. He was the campaign manger for her successful 2000 Senate campaign. Prior to that he served the Clinton administration as a regional director at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Both Clinton and de Blasio are far left of center. No surprise. However, his roots with the Nicaraguan Sandinistas should serve to remind us where her sentiments lie and how far left she may be willing to go.
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Let it be known that in the late 1980s de Blasio went to Nicaragua to aid the Sandinistas. References to his activities involving this notorious group, however, have been scrubbed from his campaign website. Later, he honeymooned with his wife in – where else? – Cuba.
For the uninitiated, the Sandinistas were part of a revolutionary group that overthrew the Somoza dynasty. A five-member junta of new leaders ruled the country until Daniel Ortega drove the moderate democrats out and became a brutal Marxist dictator.
Ortega began a policy of ethnic cleansing, attacking the Indian population that lived on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. Aided by the Soviet Union, he joined Cuba in supporting other Marxist revolutionary movements in the Americas. That's when President Reagan said "Enough!" Reagan imposed an embargo on the country and began supporting a group of democratically minded revolutionaries called the Contras.
In 1983, Amnesty International estimated there were 20,000 political prisoners in Nicaragua. Thousands more simply "disappeared." These were the people who were arrested and never heard from again. Others died while trying to escape.
Ortega controlled the population by forcing the people into "collectives" that held the food supply. If you didn't support his Marxist plan, you didn't eat. That included the farmers who grew the food and many religious leaders.
During that time, Concerned Women for America set up a refugee camp in Costa Rica to aid those who swam the shark-infested river that divided the two countries. The stories told by these refugees were heartbreaking. Ministers and priests who refused to preach Ortega's gospel of "liberation theology" were hunted down like dogs. The Sandinistas would slice their faces below the nose and pull the skin down over their mouth, tearing their lips right off their face and then leave them to die.
While de Blasio was traveling to Nicaragua to aid the "cooperatives," I sneaked into the country with a small group led by Beverlly LaHaye, the courageous founder of CWA, to make a film to tell the true story of what was happening inside the country.
There was a small window of opportunity. Ortega proclaimed his openness and invited U.S. officials to "come and see for yourself." When a large U.S. delegation took him up on his offer, we slipped into the country virtually unnoticed.
I will never forget our meeting with Violeta Charmorro (who would later become Nicaragua's president) at her empty newspaper office. Ortega proclaimed there was "freedom of the press" but Charmorro's presses were silent because she was not allowed to buy paper. We also interview the managers of radio stations that were silenced.
My most vivid memory was a clandestine meeting with a group of pastors who had refused Ortega's dictates. They told us their horror stories, but once we turned on the camera these grown men began to shake. They were too terrified to speak.
There were signs on every street corner, "Nigaruga is trying to build. The U.S. is trying to stop us." However, as we walked about, a few brave souls approached us and whispered, "You must help us! You are our only hope."
Meanwhile, Hillary's friend de Blasio was busy aiding and raising money for the Sandinistas.
Youthful idealism and mistakes can be forgiven, but de Blasio is unrepentant. After a fair election that brought Charmorro to power, de Blasio continued to work on behalf of the Sandinistas, even though he had a day job in government.
The New York Times recently reported that de Blasio says his views – then and now – represent "a mix of admiration for European social democratic movements, Mr. Roosevelt's New Deal and liberation theology."
Scary!
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