Victor Thorn - American Free Press (Issue # 47, November 24, 2008)

More sinister than Karl Rove and potentially deadlier than Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney, his name is Rahm Emanuel, and he was recently appointed chief of staff in the president-elect’s White House. This first official act should send waves of alarm through people because Barack Obama promised change, but what we’re getting is the exact same cabal that brought us 9-11 and endless war in the Middle East.

Initial media reports described Emanuel as a vulgar, Chicago-based enforcer who had an aggressive, in-your- face, pit-bull style. Others painted him as a partisan Washington insider with strong ties to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Although these labels seem harsh, the reality is far worse.

Rahm Emanuel, nicknamed “Rahmbo,” is a pro- Israel Orthodox Jew who was educated in a Talmudic yeshiva and served as a volunteer in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). He is a dual citizen of Israel, which his office  refused to deny when AFP inquired. Israel is the only nation where Americans can apply for and obtain citizenship without automatically renouncing U.S. citizenship.

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Kurt Nimmo - November 13, 2008

In the audio here, recorded in 2006, Obama’s recently selected chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, details his ideas for compulsory service for all Americans. “There can be nothing wrong with all Americans having a joint similar experience of civil… what we call civil defense training or civil service… some sense of service to country in preparation, which will give people a sense of what it means to be an American,” Emanuel told NY Daily News reporter Ben Smith. According to Emanuel, this government mandated servitude “will give people a sense of what it means to be an American,” or an American of the sort defined by the bankers and their minions.

Emanuel told Smith involuntary servitude will become “a common experience,” part of a government mandated “circle of love” that will instill “some sense of service to country.”

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Sherman H. Skolnick - 11-9-8

Excerpts From Archived News Investigations
By The Late Sherman H. Skolnick

The late Sherman Skolnick proved himself over the years to be one of the most astute and accurate American investigator journalists. As the main pillar of American journalism, he simply did not have any match. He alone has put to shame all the US media with his meticulous investigations, as well as being responsible to the removal of corrupt judges and others. It is with great honour and humility in memory of this giant American journalist that we are bringing to you his research about Rahmbo. I hope that these warnings by Skolnick will prepare our readers for what is coming very soon. All my interviews with Skolnick are available at our audio archives.

The following are excerpts (in no particular order), sent to us by readers, from Sherman Skolnick articles in which he has tried to warn us about Rahm Emanuel. URLs available at bottom. I hope this information keeps our readers informed about the character of our next  White House  Chief Of Staff ‘Enjoy’.

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Webster G. Tarpley - 11-7-8

Barky’s First Choices - No Seat At The Table For Labor And The Third World

The naming of the vicious thug Rahm Emanuel as the new Martin Bormann of the regime has caused much consternation, even among the netroots or nutroots crowd over at the Daily Kos. Rahm is a former member of the Israeli Defense Force whose ruling passion is that he is a warmonger. In 2006, when Rahm ran the Democratic congressional money machine, he made sure that only warmongers committed to the open-ended prosecution of the Afghan and Iraq wars could get any Democratic Party financing for their races. Many contests were lost as a result. A tragic case was that of grass-roots antiwar activist Christine Cegelis of Ohio, who was defeated in the Democratic primary by Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who advocated endless hostilities there. Duckworth lost to the Republican by several points. If the $300,000 Rahm gave Duckworth had been shared with anti-war candidate Bob Bowen in Florida, a Democratic seat could easily have been added. Rahm is also a product of the filthy and corrupt Illinois bipartisan Combine, which I have described in my books.

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J.D. Tuccille - November 6, 2008

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25. The following excerpt is from pages 61-62 of the 2006 book:

It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. …

Here’s how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we’re hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities’ most pressing needs.

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist “this is not a draft,” but go on to write of young men and women, “the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service.” They also warn, “[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom,” ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

As chief of staff, Emanuel will not be in a position to directly introduce public policy, but his enthusiasm for compulsory service, combined with Barack Obama’s own plan to require high school students to perform 50 hours of government-approved service, suggest an unfortunate direction for the new administration.

Kurt Nimmo - November 6, 2008

It’s too bad more Americans didn’t listen to the neocon wunderkind, Bill Kristol, before going to the polling places and voting for Barack Obama. Back in June, Kristol told the audience at an AIPAC conference there is little difference between Obama and McCain when it comes to Iran and the potential for conflict. “Obama’s not for cutting the defense budget,” said Kristol. “Obama’s not for pulling troops back from our forward positions around the world, with the exception of Iraq. Obama and McCain don’t actually differ, at least on paper, even on Iran, where they’re arguing about whether they would talk to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or not — and I think that’s an important dispute. Still, at the end of the day, Obama doesn’t say he would rule out the use of force.”

Unfortunately, by the time election day rolled around, few people seemed to realize or care that Obama is essentially a neocon dedicated to the very same agenda as McCain, who was handled by a bevy of neocons. McCain wasn’t called McBush for nothing. Now that the election is over and Obama won handily, it will be safe for him to show his real colors, as he did less than 12 hours after cinching the nomination back in June. During the election, few seemed to remember this undying devotion to Israel, so pervasive was the Obama voodoo trance.

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Alexander Cockburn - November 7 / 9, 2008

The first trumpet blast of change ushers in Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff and gate keeper. This is the man who arranges his schedule, staffs out the agenda, includes, excludes. It’s certainly as sinister an appointment as, say, Carter’s installation of arch cold-warrior Zbigniev Brzezinski as his National Security Advisor at the dawn of his “change is here” administration in 1977.

Emanuel, as Ralph Nader points out in my interview with him below, represents the worst of the Clinton years. His profile as regards Israel is explored well on this site by lawyer John Whitbeck. He’s a former Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians. Dad’s unreconstructed ethnic outlook has been memorably embodied in his recent remark to the Ma’ariv newspaper that “Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the president to be pro-Israel… Why wouldn’t he be [influential]? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to clean the floors of the White House.”

Working in the Clinton White House, Emanuel helped push through NAFTA, the crime bill, the balanced budget and welfare reform. He favored the war in Iraq, and when he was chairing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 he made great efforts to knock out antiwar Democratic candidates. On this site in October and November, 2006, John Walsh documented both the efforts and Emanuel’s role in losing the Democrats seats they would otherwise have won.

In 2006 Emanuel had just published a book with Bruce Reed called The Plan: Big Ideas for America, with one section focused on “the war on terror”. Emanuel and Reed wrote, “We need to fortify the military’s ‘thin green line ‘around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops. …Finally we must protect our homeland and civil liberties by creating a new domestic counterterrorism force like Britain’s MI5.” Recall that Obama has been calling throughout his recent campaign for an addition of 92,000 to the US Army and US Marine Corps.

Emanuel and Reed had fond words for the mad-dog Peter Beinart, neocon warrior theoretician for the Democrats, roosting Marty Peretz’s The New Republic, and author of The Good Fight where Beinart explained why a tough new national security policy is as essential to the future of of progressive politics as a united front against totalitarianism and communism was to the New Deal and the Great Society. Emanuel and Reed also commended Anne-Marie Slaughter’s proposal for “a new division of labor in which the United Nations takes on economic and social assistance and an expanded NATO takes over the burden of collective security.” In other words, let NATO shoot the natives and the UN clean the floors.

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