Obama’s Labor pick has communist ties

By Aaron Klein


Rep. Hilda L. Solis

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the Labor Department has close ties to U.S. communist and socialist organizations and has sent representatives to functions organized by national parties for both ideologies.

The pick of Rep. Hilda L. Solis, D-Calif., a Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader considered to be one of the most reliably pro-union voices in the House, was hailed as a victory by communist and socialist leaders.

Get
“The Audacity of Deceit,” and learn about the looming hostile attack on
the freedoms Americans hold dear.

An article this past weekend in the Communist Party USA’s People’s Weekly World Newspaper welcomed Solis and quoted known socialist leaders calling her a “great choice” and an “outstanding” selection with “a life-long commitment to working people.”

Among other personalities, the Communist paper quoted former Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., a top economic adviser to Obama, calling Solis a “terrific leader who I know first-hand will work tirelessly on behalf of America’s working families.”

WND previously reported Bonior is listed as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, an organization dedicated to transforming America into a socialist society. He was a frontrunner for the labor secretary post, but endorsed Solis after dropping out of the race.

Greg Sargent, a writer for the radical left-leaning Talking Points Memo blog quoted Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, stating the person who best knows Solis is Vice Chair of the DSA Harold Meyerson.

Meyerson himself weighs in on Solis in a piece on the American Prospect website, heralding her “record of passionate commitment to working people, a high level of political smarts, and some genuine displays of raw guts that could make her a star of American liberalism.”

Meyerson continues, “In the House, Solis has continued to champion labor causes, immigrants’ rights, women’s health and environmental protections.”

Solis herself has close ties to both socialist and communist organizations in the U.S.

Trever Loudon, a communist researcher based in New Zealand, found that in November 2005 Solis addressed the DSA National Convention in Los Angeles, entitled, “The New Capital of Progressive Politics?”

“By appointing the strongly pro-union Solis,” writes Loudon on his New Zeal blog, “president-elect Barack Obama has sent a clear signal to his far left support base that he has not abandoned his roots.”

Also, this past June, Solis sent Elana Henry, a caseworker from Solis’s East Los Angeles office, to represent her at a forum on worker’s rights organized by Socialists International. According to the group’s website Socialists International bills itself as the worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties. It has close ties to the DSA.

Solis also reportedly sent a representative to a major event of the Communist Party USA. The Communist Party’s newspaper documents that on June 20, 1996, Solis sent Antonio Aguilar on her behalf to present an honoree at the Party’s Southern California Friends of the People’s Weekly World tribute to two local labor leaders.

 

 


Aaron Klein

Aaron Klein is WND's senior staff writer and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also hosts "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on Salem Talk Radio. Follow Aaron on Twitter and Facebook. Read more of Aaron Klein's articles here.