The right wing uses "Socialist" instead of "Communist" or Commie -- the terms they used in Senator McCarthy's (R-WI) right-wing witch hunts of the 1950's. Look in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Socialism means the government owns "the means of production," and that paychecks are "unequal" and people are paid according to "work done."

That means the government would own things like auto plants, oil refineries, and perhaps services like: restaurants, banks, police, parks, and libraries. The idea was that the government would earn a profit, and people would be paid for work. (I once ate in a government restaurant in Socialist Yugoslavia.)

So has Obama nationalized any banks? No. Oil refineries? No. The only thing even close is that the government will basically extend Medicare to about 10% more Americans who didn't have health insurance. So if you think Medicare is socialist because the government has taken some business away from our wonderful health insurance industry, then that's a bit of socialism. But compared with public schools, police, roads, and parks, it's tiny. And most people think that roads-and-parks "socialism" is just fine.

Don't believe everything Hitler and Rush Limbaugh say. Hitler called his party "National Socialists." North Korea calls itself the "Democratic People's Republic." What? You're not buying what Dear Leader tells us? So the truth was the opposite of what Hitler said. No! Hitler and Rush would not lie to us, would they?

Hitler was a Fascist. He hated the Socialists and Communists most. After he set the Reichstag fire in February 1933, he pinned it on the Communists and banned the German Socialist Party. Communists and Socialists were swept into concentration camps or forced to flee the country. Rush would have been thrilled. (Truman Libarary)

Obama did not release any new information about U.S. torture, only about who authorized it and when. I personally read the details of all of the torture techniques used by the CIA a week before President Obama released the Bush memos. How? It was all printed in the New York Review of Books, as you can see for yourself April 9, 2009. The article is based on this Red Cross Report. It's all in there and was all public.

ABC tells us "Republican lawmakers took to the airwaves on the Sunday talk shows to argue the president's release [April 16] of memos detailing the Bush administration's internal discussions of harsh interrogation tactics has made America less safe. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, told ABC News, 'The release of these memos is dangerous.' Former GOP Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, speaking on Fox News, called it 'grotesquely irresponsible.'"

They argue that terrorists will learn how we torture and then train to withstand it. But all of the information was already out in public and the Republicans know this. They are simply upset that Bush, who told us the United States does not torture, has been shown to be a liar.