03/20/13

Former Attorney General Urges Probe of Al Jazeera

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s call for a congressional “inquiry” into Al Jazeera’s purchase of Al Gore’s Current TV gives hope that the controversial transaction benefiting the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood can still be derailed.

At a Breitbart News-sponsored forum during last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Mukasey said, in response to a question from this writer, “I think if an American medium is controlled by a political force from abroad, that’s a proper subject for inquiry.”

That political force is the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Its financial backer, which owns Al Jazeera, is the undemocratic and authoritarian government of Qatar. Mukasey’s speech to the Breitbart event was about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the U.S.

At the same time, U.S. military veterans are speaking out. Larry Bailey, co-founder of a group of veterans and supporters of the Special Operations communities of the Armed Forces, tells Accuracy in Media that Congress should examine the “penetration” of the U.S. media market by Al Jazeera because the pro-Jihadist television channel only spells “more trouble within our society.”

Bailey, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, founded Special Operations Speaks (SOS).

Fox News commentator Lisa Daftari has suggested that the new “Al Jazeera America” channel could inspire violence and terrorism by stirring up Muslims in cities such as heavily-Arab Detroit, Michigan, where one of its bureaus is scheduled to open.

The Obama Administration, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt with foreign aid and weapons shipments, has refused to subject the Al Jazeera deal to any official scrutiny.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski asking what, if any, agency review procedures and oversight processes came into play regarding the transaction. But Genachowski is stonewalling and has not responded. Murphy holds a senior position on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Murphy’s office told AIM, “We’re not surprised the FCC has not even acknowledged, let alone responded to, Chairman Murphy’s inquiry. But he is not deterred and will keep pursuing this deal even if he goes it alone.”

Although stories in the U.S. are appearing about hundreds of students and journalists flooding “Al Jazeera America” with job applications, there are reports coming in from abroad about journalists leaving the channel in disgust and outrage.

The German magazine Der Spiegel ran an article titled, “After the Arab Spring: Al-Jazeera Losing Battle for Independence,” on how the channel’s slanted coverage is sparking resignations by news personnel and complaints of editorial interference from the Jihadist-supporting Arab regime paying the bills.

In a column titled, “The collapse of Al-Jazeera’s credibility,” Ghaffar Hussain, a writer and commentator on Middle Eastern issues, expands on some of the evidence in Der Spiegel, noting that Al Jazeera is known for airing “propaganda for the Muslim Brotherhood” and its sponsors in Qatar.

Explaining the nature of the “Arab Spring” and the revolutions in Egypt and Libya, which were supported by the Obama Administration, he wrote, “The only reason Al Jazeera supported political dissidents pre-Arab Spring was because the Qatari royal family opposed secular dictators such as Mubarak and Gaddafi. Not because they were dictators but because they were largely secular and despised the clout Qatar sought to wield. Support for dissidents in this context was not about love for freedom and openness, but motivated by a desire to undermine regimes the Qatari state viewed unfavorably.”

He adds, “Since the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power in Egypt, Al Jazeera has done all in its power to portray the group in a favorable light. Protests against the Brotherhood-dominated regime are presented as being led by violent thugs with no political grievances, while [Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed] Morsi’s poorly constructed and shallow speeches are given positive coverage.”

My question to Mukasey was as follows:

“General: [You spoke of] the assault [by] the Muslim Brotherhood—civilizational Jihad. Al Jazeera just paid Al Gore and his comrades $500 million to get into the U.S. media market, 40-50 million homes. Shouldn’t the House Homeland Security Committee hold hearings into this and examine Al Jazeera’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist groups?”

After urging the inquiry, Mukasey noted the “delicious irony” in The Wall Street Journal report about Al Jazeera “looking for space in the former New York Times building.” He added, “They should feel right at home.”

Indeed, the Times in an editorial had called the channel “an important news source,” and urged cable and satellite providers to carry it.

Another problem, as we noted in our column, Gore’s Al Jazeera Deal Now a Major Scandal, is that the former Democratic vice president has been sued for $5 million. In effect, Gore is accused of stealing the idea to sell his channel to the Qatar government. The media broker, John Terenzio, says his specialty is getting access for foreign channels in the U.S. media market and that he was not compensated for his work on the deal.

If the suit goes forward, more embarrassing details about the transaction could come out.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].

03/20/13

Krauthammer: ‘America Is Headed the Way of Cyprus’

Adrienne’s Corner

03/20/13

Interview with Australian artist, Sergio Redegalli on Islam and blasphemy

Hat Tip: Vlad Tepes
MRCTV

03/20/13

Benghazi-gate Cover-up: Fox News’ Catherine Herridge Receives AIM’s Reed Irvine Award

By: Wes Vernon
Accuracy in Media

Six months after a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, survivors of the savagery that left four Americans dead the night of Sept. 11, 2012, still have not been permitted to tell their story in a public forum. So now, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are threatening to subpoena them.

Catherine Herridge, longtime reporter for Fox News, received Accuracy in Media’s Reed Irvine Award for investigative reporting on that scandal. The White House is desperately trying to put a lid on the whole thing, hoping that no one is compelled to testify as to whether it is true, as alleged, that the president, in the midst of his re-election campaign, watched the four Americans die and then went to bed.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee, says while Congress has been exceptionally patient, “we’re getting to the point where there’s no other option” than to issue a subpoena to the survivors.

Most media AWOL

At times, Fox has appeared to be virtually alone in pursuing the case. When Catherine Herridge’s intrepid quest for answers to multiple questions became too much for the president’s re-election campaign, the Obama White House organized a conference call briefing, inviting every major Washington medium except Fox News. Obviously, Mr. Obama’s staff knew that Herridge would know the right questions to ask since she has been all over the story from Day 1.

According to the Tampa-based Revive America, the Obama White House is now “hiding the identities of as many as 30 survivors” of the attack, and is determined to prevent their congressional testimony “even in closed session.”

In answer to my question at the AIM award ceremony, Herridge said that some of the survivors are likely intelligence operatives not necessarily free to speak out without a green light from supervisors. Apparently she had no direct knowledge of whether carrots, sticks, or threats were being offered.

With enough pressure from Capitol Hill, and with the persistence of investigators such as Herridge, any effort by the White House to shut these people up will fail. At some point, it may come down to a question as to whether it is more politically damaging for Obama to allow the full story to go public than to risk an outraged citizenry convinced he is trying to cover-up obstruction and deceit.

As for the AIM ceremony

The Accuracy in Media award event is an annual affair. The late AIM founder Reed Irvine, in whose honor the recognition is bestowed, was an investigator in his own right. Actually, he did not start out as a journalist. He was a respected economist for the Federal Reserve Board.

From that vantage point, he would have seen much that went on in the world that was being distorted or ignored by the dinosaur media. When he – as a citizen – called them out on their dereliction, he was shooed away or given the run-around. Irvine’s response, in so many words, was on the order of “OK, if you guys won’t do your job, I’ll do it for you.” And he did. That, to make a long story short, is how AIM was born.

Another scandal

Reed was a good friend, a good and honorable man who had no patience with alibis that did not hold up.

One of his first cases involved the Watergate scandal of the seventies. Reed detected some unexplained loose ends and dead-ends on the part of the media and the non-journalist critics of the Nixon White House.

Nothing that Reed Irvine, the new self-starting investigator, did or said throughout his own probe absolved Nixon of complicity in the cover-up. But the citizen reporter did raise some relevant questions that seemed not to interest the dinosaurs in the slightest.

Delayed investigative pay dirt

It is a shame that Reed passed away just a few months before Mark Felt publicly admitted that he was the mysterious “Deep Throat,” the source on Watergate for Woodward and Bernstein and a few other reporters.

Thus, a number of questions that Irvine raised and for which he criticized the media now begin to add up. Those mysteries were explored in a recent book, Leak: Why Mark Felt became Deep Throat.

That volume pokes holes in the Watergate saga as related by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their book All the President’s Men, and the subsequent movie of the same name where the distortions in the original book were carried over and in fact expanded. By the time the story reached that point, the telling of Watergate mixed accurate information with half-truths, distortions, and outright misstatements of fact. Let it be remembered, after all, that Hollywood is not concerned with serious news. It’s about entertainment and “Hooray for Hollywood.” That may be a reason for the dereliction. It hardly rates as an excuse for sloppy reportage of a non-fictitious event.

Max Holland, the author of Leak, criticizes “Woodstein,” among other things, for defining Felt as a “truth-teller.”A truth-teller? Really? I stopped counting all the lies that man told as revealed just in the book by Holland. Nor did Woodward and Bernstein honor the truth when they described their sources as responsible people with no ax to grind.

But why?

Forget that “truth-teller” Felt denied over and over again that he was “Deep Throat.” The lowest of the low of his skullduggery was that his motivations had nothing to do with good “truth-telling” citizenship. This whole can of worms that stirred the political pot in the early seventies occurred because Mark Felt was miffed. Why the hissy-fit? All because Felt – at that time Assistant FBI Director – was angry that President Nixon had passed him over for FBI Director to replace J. Edgar Hoover, who had recently died.

In the process, Felt undermined his own FBI agents in the field who were investigating the scandal. Like a cheating student peering over another student’s shoulder during an exam, Felt was cribbing notes from his trusting underlings and passing them on to “Woodstein.”

The agents were furious because it no doubt cost them sources who no longer trusted them since the incomplete probe was splashed all over the media. Secondly, Felt stabbed in the back an honorable man – Patrick Gray, who was FBI Director pending his confirmation, which later went down in flames after it appeared he was incapable of controlling his own agents.

Felt also saw to it that Gray was blamed for black bag jobs that Felt himself had authorized. As he had done with Hoover, Felt had obsequiously brown-nosed up to Gray, hoping that after the latter’s nomination went down in flames, he would – on his way out the door – recommend his “trusted aide” Mark Felt for the job. (I’ve searched the dictionary and find no indication that “trusted aide” is a synonym for “snake.”)

Incidentally (or not), when Felt was before a court to answer for those black bag jobs, his fellow agents raised money for his defense. No doubt, if they had only known the truth, they would have wanted their money back.

In the end

So decades after the fact, we know that Reed Irvine’s attempts to point out to the dinosaur media the gaps in their Watergate reportage were well-founded. Instead of following up on them, the media mavens whined that Reed was “harassing” them.

Here we had this burgeoning new organization pointing out the gaps for which self-respecting reporters would want answers. Instead, icons of some of the largest news organizations on the planet played the “pitiful picked-on” act, telling this self-starting citizen (in so many words), “Get away from us! You’re picking on us, you big bully!”

Today, Reed would have to be smiling from on high as he sees serious national TV reporters such as Fox’s Catherine Herridge, who is doing her job and showing up the “see-no-evil” dinosaurs.

Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer & broadcast journalist.

03/20/13

Breaking News Journal: New Site for Truth, Accuracy. & Much More

By: Sher Zieve
Gulag Bound

There’s a new news site on the Internet. But, it’s not typical of any other site and its not just about news. Ruth Bryant White is an entrepreneur who challenges herself, stereotypes and falsehoods in journalism and other areas on a daily basis. She crosses political lines, which she does not believe should be barriers to human dialogue. Her biography includes, but is not limited to, the following:

2010 Recipient of the Salvatore Prize given by the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC; the 1997 recipient along with her husband Professor White of the Changing Images in America Award in Hollywood; Coordinating Producer of the Post Oscar Showcase. Ruth writes: “It’s believed that Whitney Houston’s version of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella was a direct result of our work to cast and hire Directors, Writers, Producers and Actors based on their ability to do the job and not their skin color or physical disability.”

Ruth’s events have been sponsored by Women In Film, Universal Pictures, Paramount Studios, and endorsed by Beau Bridges, Andy Garcia, Susan Sarandon, Kate Capshaw, Sigourney Weaver, Jane Seymour and more. Ruth and her husband were consultants on movies, including Denzel Washington’s Devil In A Blue Dress by Tri- Star, as well as honored guests at the movie premier of Viacom/Showtime’s ‘Mr. And Mrs. Lovings,‘ a film about the 1967 Decision to legalize interracial marriage via then Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

The Interview

Sher: Ruth, I’m so pleased to talk with you about your new site and soon to be TV Network “Breaking News Journal.” You told me when we talked last week that the site is not geared toward any particular political ideology but, is designed to present factual truths and real news…something that is sorely lacking in the “mainstream media,” today. BNJ also seems to be a real proponent of the US Constitution. Is that your intent?

Ruth: Thank you Sher for taking time out of your busy schedule to interview me on such an important subject as our national media. Breaking News Journal.Net is not geared towards any political group. The Heartland of America is, frankly, tired of being bombarded with information in the old media that does not give the individual an outlet to express themselves about the content and the type of news being delivered. Breaking News Journal is the the TOWN SQUARE of new media. Think about it. In the early days of our civilization, when anything happened, everyone heard a call to assemble at the Town Square so they could be informed on what was happening and getting suggestions on who and what was needed to solve the situation. That is what Breaking News Journal.net (BNJ ) is. We have answered the call to give people the news they otherwise would not receive.

Sher: I found the story surrounding how and why you began BNJ to be both fascinating and inspiring and I’m certain my readers will, too. Would you share it with us?

image from breakingnewsjournal.net/

Ruth: I was the first [announced] 2008 Presidential Candidate of the general elections before Hillary, Obama, or McCain. As I was campaigning across the country, I heard over and over again from people who were angry that MSNBC, CNN, or [even] Fox were informing them on all of the candidates who were running for office, so they (the individual) could make a choice of who they wanted in office for themselves. So, whether I was in New Hampshire, DC, South Dakota, Colorado or any other State I kept hearing people who were angry they hadn’t seen any of us seriously independent candidates on the news. The people were doubly upset, because they felt we had answers to their concerns (Unemployment, Prayers in Schools, The Constitution, Healthcare, Media, and other issues) that they thought should have been given Global attention. I made the debut of my candidacy on Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly program. The producers and hosts of Fox’s daytime live audience show were so impressed with the program I did with Bill O’Reilly, I was asked if I would stay in town to do their program. I agreed.

When O’Reilly’s producer found me on the set the next day, he came to give me information of how well I was received by their audience and how much email came. Thousands. He said so many people wanted to hear what I said. I knew at that point if Bill O’Reilly didn’t have me back on the program it would be because what I had to say was too raw and too real. That meant I had to come up with something where people could have their voices heard. In 2008, on Election Day, we launched Breaking News Journal.net. And by the way we haven’t heard from Bill O’Reilly since. To some it might have been a disappointment, but to people like me and my husband Professor White it motivated us to do something about that hunger.

The thing that makes BNJ unusual is all of our columnists are Presidential Candidates ( Dr. Laurie Roth, 2012, Christopher Popham Smith 2008, Frank McENulty, 2008, Daniel Kingery 2008, Donald K Allen 2008) which no other news service has. We have developed a celebrity Volumnist ( I created the term) which is scheduling a celebrity who has something to say NOW to provide a way for him or her to communicate what they want others to know. This can be dine by video, live voice on Breaking News Journal On Air Radio, or submitting in writing; so that their voices can be heard and they don’t have to wait until next week or tomorrow. If they want to go on now, I can set it up for them to go live on the radio so they can get their message out immediately. We have a community page and we have our investigative Reporter Debi Keatts out of Virginia and Community Reporter Steve Commander out of Las Vegas.

Sher: Please tell us about “Project Red Slipper.”

Ruth: Project Red Slipper is a group of seasoned and experienced lady producers (some men too) who have either developed and/or are hosting their own programs and have something that the public is yearning to hear. Until this point, they haven’t had a massive avenue to get those messages out or to give a voice to those who have something the heartland of American needs. I asked a group of female producers who already have their own projects and programs to join with me and become the lady producers of Project Red Slipper. It’s a name I came up with to get people’s attention, without anyone feeling that we were a group of women of the unsavory type. But, we needed to get the world’s attention that we are smart, go-getters and we are getting ready to take the world by storm. These women all have their own genre of production they specialize in. Project Red Slipper is designed to get the funding from outside investors (who are businesses savvy and are looking for somewhere good to put their resources). Investors may or may not be in politics, we don’t ask, because that is not important. What is important is that we have the resources to reach the masses with our projects.

Sher: You advised me that BNJ is now in a full-on investment mode and that you have, in a very short period of time, attracted multiple investors who are eager to fund your venture and the upcoming expansions into other arenas, as well. Without divulging any specific names, would you tell us about what is happening in that area?

Ruth: Since before Christmas 2012, I felt Breaking News Journal.Net had proven itself and the site was developed enough so that we could look for investors to participate and to help us grow. It has taken the development of BNJ 4 years to get to the point it is now, which is launch time…time to go to the next level.

I researched websites that work specifically with businesses who understand and want to invest, specifically, in media ventures. Surprisingly, we received responses overall from 13 investors, 2 of which can invest $30 million or more (one Promise with a Surety Bond). There are 2 more sources that can invest $1-5 million, and 1 that can invest less than 1 million.

The projects will range from TV Program such as Sports Indoor/Outdoor, Family, Food, Fashion, Children’s Programming, Teens, Investigative Reporting, Reality shows of various types in response to “trash” TV. We plan to be the William Randolph Hearst, Ted Turner, and Rupert Murdoch of new media. We plan to expand the news to hire bloggers, to hire some of them that cover different genres of news, Entertainment, etc. I must give a shout out to my Web Master Ethan Stone of Utah, in my humble opinion the best Web Master ever, and my Managing Editor Lynne Roberts out of Vermont. They have been with me for 2 years. There are people who are working with me who are on the site that I have known for over 30 years, some before I met my husband of [now] 34 years. Once I believe in you, and you are true to your word and who you are, then we normally have long friendships.

We are now embarking – as a part of our funding- “Breaking News Journal Feature Films” produced by UP Productions. Andrew Breitbart’s Filmmaker Christian Hartsock will Direct 3 Feature Films for the big screen.

The Breaking News Journal TV Channel will work as follows. We already provide live streaming on the Breaking News Journal Live TV Page. Each producer can live stream an individual episode of their programs, chat live with stream viewers and ask questions and get answers in real time. Then, that that same program will be archived and put on the Breaking News Journal TV Channel once launched. For example, in Dr. Laurie’s case she can live stream programs. But, because of time constraints on Broadcast TV they will edit and chop up her work. However, her fans will have gotten the chance to interact with her live, as will be the case with all genres of our projects.

Sher: The plans you have for Breaking News Journal are impressive, exciting and appear planned to allow growth and diversification into multiple platforms and directions. Are there any of those you can currently share with us?

Ruth: We are a one stop shop for people. We have news with a National News Bureau Chief from a major Broadcast News Service that is waiting to come on board BNJ with funding. We have producers who have worked in their genres like Dr. Laurie Roth who has been a PBS TV Star of CD Highway where she interviewed such celebrity entertainers as Rita Coolige, Billy Ray Cyrus, Chuck Mangione, Al Green and more (whose programs can be purchased on Amazon.com) and Producer who has projects that with the funding Breaking news Journal is receiving can produce her Investigative Reporting TV Shows that have been promised for Broadcast TV, and The Roth Report, as well has her radio programs. Then we have Christian Hartsock who is a Filmmaker who is taking us to another level by producing Feature Films, and who has been featured on all major cable news service (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Current TV, Breitbart News and Kelsey Grammer TV Station and has relatives who produced on movies “Crash” with “Sandra Bullock”and more).

The way I have everything set up, every one of the producers of Project Red Slipper are a part of the budget for the funding that we receive. That means they will all be working. and they will all be able to breathe a little easier, so they can continue to do what they love without the pressures of wondering how they will pay a bill. We have all kinds of producers: some are young and in college, some are single parents, and some are ‘seasoned citizens’ with something valuable to say.

I asked everyone how much it would take to get their projects with marketing and distribution to put on the market, and based on all project’s financial requirements, I created the budget. I will be Executive Producer, but will not have creative rights to their projects. I just want to see them succeed and I want everyone outside of our circle to know their names. I want the Academy Awards to be full of nothing but the projects for the lady and men producers of Project Red Slipper.

I used my expertise in Finance when I calculated the allotments from the Military Worker. I worked in Finance all of my career and I was also the Creator and President of “The Green Valley High Rollers” Investment Club where members put funds in different stocks with which they felt comfortable. We made sure every member would receive updates on their particular investment, which is the way I plan to make sure investors are comfortable with investing in The Breaking News Journal Brand.

We have several ways investors will be paid back: A.) Pay Per View of Live Events, once The TV Channel is Launched; B.) Sponsors, Donors, News sites pay every time someone looks at the news; C.) Subscribers and Advertisers. Plus, some of our producers have secured a deal where some of their projects are already promised for be on Broadcast TV with advertising dollars and distribution deals. So, the value of their being Producers of Project Red Slipper makes all of our work much more valuable.

Sher: Ruth, thanks so much and we wish you the greatest success. If there is anyone out there who is intrigued and interested in funding one or more of the BNJ projects, how can they contact you?

Ruth: If anyone wishes to support our projects, they should email me at [email protected], or they can call (702) 260-4849. For those who prefer sending support through the mail, they can send it to: Breaking News Journal, C/O Ruth Bryant White , PO Box 50036, Henderson, NV 89016-0036. For any size contribution, go to www.breakingnewsjournal.net, and click on the Red Slipper.

03/20/13

This Week’s Watcher’s Council Nominations – March Madness Edition

The Watcher’s Council

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, Ask Marion and The Pirate’s Cove took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some fine articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title and a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address (which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6 PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category and return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members, while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week…

Council Submissions