05/11/13
Daily Archives: May 11, 2013
05/11/13
Relatives of top CBS, ABC and CNN executives helping Obama on Benghazi!
By: James Simpson
Examiner.com
1973: reporters investigate All the President’s Men. 2013: reporters are All the President’s Men.
You knew the mainstream media was biased, but this is incredible. It was revealed today that CBS News President David Rhodes’ brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points. But it gets worse. It is now learned that ABC President Ben Sherwood’s sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs. But even this isn’t it! CNN’s deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton’s deputy.
Ben Rhodes is a top NSC advisor with absolutely no foreign policy or military experience. None! This idiot has advocated intervention both in Libya and now Syria. How has that worked out for us? He is responsible for helping to massage the Benghazi talking points to watered down drivel. His greatest accomplishment appears to be a Master’s Degree in fiction writing received from New York University. So perhaps we should call him Obama’s fiction writer!
In what may be a belated effort to salvage its reputation, or perhaps an effort to get the best scoop now that keeping quiet is out of the question, ABC published a story revealing that there were twelve revisions of the Benghazi memo. The final version eradicated all references to terrorists and al Qaeda. Nice work, Mr. Fiction Writer!
Is there any doubt that CBS, ABC and CNN lose all credibility as objective news sources when their top leadership have siblings in top positions in the Obama administration, and do everything they can to suppress absolutely critical national security news for months? Conservative comedic writer IowaHawk tweeted: 1973: reporters investigate All the President’s Men. 2013: reporters are All the President’s Men.
Indeed.
The only mainstream media reporter really doing her job is CBS’s Sharyl Attkison. Attkison has also done a heroic job on the Fast N’ Furious Eric Holder gun running scandal. Now it appears CBS is pressuring her to leave. Gee, wonder why?
Whatever shred of credibility existed among the network news organizations has now been utterly obliterated. We can only hope that the American people get the message. I think it is too late for the networks. And for those who think this is just “old news,” not worth worrying about, I will quote the mother of the murdered Sean Smith:
“I want to wish Hillary a happy Mother’s Day. She’s got her child. I don’t have mine – because of her.”
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05/11/13
Are Valerie Jarrett’s predictions of “payback time” coming true?
By: Nelson Abdullah
Conscience of a Conservative
The Republican Party and their Tea Party supporters are all upset today over the admission made by the IRS that some Tea Party organizations were denied and/or stalled in receiving approval for tax exempt status. The applications for the tax exempt status was a very important factor in the months leading up to the 2012 presidential elections. And, of course, the Internal Revenue Service quickly placed the blame on some low ranking employees. Yet, not a single news article sought to reveal the sinister prediction made just before the November elections, attributed to Valerie Jarrett, Senior White House Advisor to Barack Hussein Obama about the “Payback time” that was about to fall upon “all the ones who opposed us.” The prediction was first reported on The Ulsterman Report on November 1, 2012 and I wrote a lengthy piece here.
A rep from Jarrett office was in today. She gave us a finish line pep talk and then afterwards, heard her saying how Jarrett is very excited about a 2nd term agenda and a big part of that agenda is to punish everyone who opposed them during the first term and the campaign. Strange that everything was “Ms. Jarrett wants this, and Ms. Jarrett is looking forward to that”. You hardly heard Obama’s name mentioned by her which I guess reinforces what people are saying. Valerie Jarrett really is the power in the White House. I know that when her representative showed up it was like royalty was visiting. All the big dogs were lined up to meet her and acting real friendly and they gave us a heads up an hour before and told us we better “put on a good show” while she was here.
The part that really stuck out to me was when I overheard the rep say that Jarrett told them, “After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time. Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go.” She was talking directly to about three of them. Sr. staff. And she wasn’t trying to be quiet about it at all. And they were all listening and shaking their heads and smiling while she said it. Pretty creepy.
So what else has happened since the the Democratic Party stole the election? That phrase “stole the election” has already been documented hundreds of times and even had a few sanitized references made in the mainstream news media, so it speaks for itself. Unfortunately, our National Republican Party leadership is still being influenced by the Conscientious Objector mentality of Mitt Romney who would rather make peace than fight and did not challenge the hundreds of reported violations of election law. Nor was their any public criticism over billionaire socialist and mega-million contributor to the Democratic Party George Soros’ Secretary of State Project aimed to elect the one person in every state that certifies election results. And then as Michelle Malkin revealed on 5/09/2012 in her article on pre-election concerns:
FACT: The security risks of e-voting are still a legitimate concern. University of California at Berkeley computer science professor David Wagner wrote a critical report for the Pentagon about the privacy and accuracy shortcomings of Scytl’s military voting program in 2004 — which prompted the feds to cancel the initial program, according to PBS.
In October 2010, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics encouraged outside parties to try to find security holes in their online balloting infrastructure operated by Scytl. A group of University of Michigan students successfully hacked into the system, commandeered passwords, doctored ballots and programmed audio of the school’s fight song to play whenever an e-ballot was submitted.
FACT: Over the past five months, investigative journalist James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas team have exposed systemic lapses at precincts in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington, D.C. The ballots of famous public figures have been forked over to complete strangers; disenfranchisement of legitimate voters is routine. While Minnesota and New Hampshire legislators have passed new voter integrity/identification laws, O’Keefe now has been targeted for investigation and possible prosecution for blowing the whistle. And Attorney General Eric Holder is striking his usual see-no-evil, shoot-the-messenger, play-the-race-card pose.
A small postscript to Michelle Malkin’s story about the number of reports that electronic voting machines did change votes cast for Mitt Romney to Barack Hussein Obama (here, here and here) may just be a case of hind-site being 20-20. But again, back to the original question, has there been any other instances of revenge coming forth from powers that control The White House? Maybe a quick review of the headlines would suggest some follow-up, noted here in no particular order.
- The Department of Defense released a statement last month saying it was about to Court Martial any Christians in the Armed Forces for “Religious proselytization” or preaching their faith. The order was directed against Military Chaplains as well.
WND.com 5/01/2013 Mikey Weinstein has been on a crusade for more than a decade against Christians in the military who speak about their faith with others, but now top brass apparently are listening to him.
After a private meeting between Weinstein and Pentagon officials April 23, a Pentagon spokesman declared, “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense.”
The spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, added that “court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis, and it would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome in specific cases.”
- Apparently, one time Muslim Barack Hussein Obama has a great disdain for our military (see my story on the Obama changes to Rules of Engagement) and nothing more could be shown to prove this than when his Pentagon officials brought in a Muslim cleric to give the invocation prayer at the funeral for the Navy SEAL Team VI members who died in a helicopter shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2011. These were the same SEAL’s who successfully located and eliminated Osama bin Laden. A certified translation of the Muslim cleric’s Arabic prayer damned these heroes as “infidels to Allah”. Perhaps Obama’s “payback” began prior to the 2012 elections and all indications are that the DoD set up the SEALs because they killed Osama bin Laden instead of capturing him alive.
(Washington, D.C.) — Three families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, will appear at a press conference on May 9, 2013, to disclose never before revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others died in a fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011, just a few months after the successful raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden that resulted in the master terrorist’s death.
Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban.
The areas of inquiry at the press conference will include but not be limited to:
1. How President Obama and Vice President Biden, having disclosed on May 4, 2011, that Navy Seal Team VI carried out the successful raid on Bin Laden’s compound resulting in the master terrorist’s death, put a retaliatory target on the backs of the fallen heroes.
2. How and why high-level military officials sent these Navy SEAL Team VI heroes into battle without special operations aviation and proper air support.
3. How and why middle-level military brass carries out too many ill-prepared missions to boost their standing with top-level military brass and the Commander-in-Chief in order that they can be promoted.
4. How the military restricts special operations servicemen and others from engaging in timely return fire when fired upon by the Taliban and other terrorist groups and interests, thus jeopardizing the servicemen’s lives.
5. How and why the denial of requested pre-assault fire may have contributed to the shoot down of the Navy SEAL Team VI helicopter and the death of these special operations servicemen.
6. How Afghani forces accompanying the Navy SEAL Team VI servicemen on the helicopter were not properly vetted and how they possibly disclosed classified information to the Taliban about the mission, resulting in the shoot down of the helicopter.
7. How military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” will be shown with a certified translation. - Obama has made no secret of his dislike for Christians or for our Constitutional Rights. He has publicly ridiculed patriotic Americans for clinging to their guns and their religion. At a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco on April 6, 2008, Barack Hussein Obama displayed his true animosity against Christians and gun owners when he said: “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Apparently, and/or conveniently, the mainstream news media, owned by the Democratic Party, forgot to remind us about Obama’s long standing opposition to gun ownership while Obama was demanding revocations to our Second Amendment rights in recent months. Notwithstanding the big lie uttered by Obama (during his 2008 campaign) when he said he supported the Second Amendment or the frequent lies uttered by Democrat Joe Biden during election year campaign stops that “”Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey,” he said. “If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.”, post election comments take a different tone. Huffington Post, 4/25/2013:
WASHINGTON — A week after the Senate failed to come up with 60 votes to pass a measure expanding background checks on gun buyers, Vice President Joe Biden regrouped with gun control advocates on Thursday and reassured them the White House isn’t giving up the fight.
Biden made “a real commitment” to keep pushing for gun reforms, said Pia Carusone, executive director of Americans for Responsible Solutions, a gun control PAC run by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband Mark Kelly.
Gun control groups and Obama allies are already turning an eye to 2014, plotting payback for senators who voted against expanded background checks. Giffords’ group is even prepared to run ads against Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who is a close friend of Giffords but who also voted against background checks.
There’s that word again, “Payback”. The Democrats seem to have a fond affection for using it. I guess Varlerie Jarrett’s memo was widely read at The White House. Now all we have to worry about are those “two judges” she has ready to go, my guess again is they are for the Supreme Court. If and when that happens we can all kiss our asses and the Bill of Rights goodbye.
My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides.
05/11/13
05/11/13
05/11/13
Weekly Featured Profile – David Kusnet
David Kusnet
David Kusnet works for the Tony Podesta’s Washington D.C. lobbying firm the Podesta Group.
Kusnet is “an accomplished author and a former presidential speechwriter, has extensive experience creating speeches, reports, and opinion pieces, as well as authoring or co-authoring five books. David works with clients to craft compelling messages and develop strategic plans. He also contributes to research projects and other written materials for the firm.”
David Kusnet was Chief Speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton and wrote for former presidential candidates Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. During the Clinton administration, Kusnet also did consulting work for the Department of Labor, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Census Bureau, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the United States Information Agency and other agencies. From 1985 through 1991, he was Vice President for communications of People For the American Way.
Long-time Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supporter, then member, former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was a national health care adviser to Bill Clinton in 1992. His book, America Needs a Raise, was ghosted by Kusnet,
Kusnet was an original supporter of DSA’s parent organization Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, in the early 1970s.
The original Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee publication was called Newsletter of the Democratic Left. Those listed as helping produce the October 1973 issue were David Bensman, Henry Bayer, Gretchen Donart, David Gaberman, Tom Kramer, Jon Ratner, Ronnie Steinberg Ratner, Mark Schaeffer, Nancy Shier and David Kusnet.
More than 1,200 people attended the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee initiated Democratic Agenda Conference held November 16-18, 1979, at the International Inn and Metropolitan AM Church in Washington, D.C. The conference focused on “corporate power” as the key barrier to “economic and political democracy,” concepts many Democratic Agenda participants defined as “socialism.”
The Democratic Agenda meetings attempted to develop “anti-corporate alternatives” through influencing the direction of the Democratic Party during the period leading to the July 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York.
David Kusnet moderated the workshop on “The Media and Social Change.”
As late as 1987, Kusnet sent greetings to Chicago Democratic Socialists of America’s annual Debs Dinner event.
He has also continued to contribute to In These Times, a Chicago based journal founded by the radical Institute for Policy Studies and closely affiliated to Democratic Socialists of America.
In 1996, David Kusnet was one of the original 130 founders of Campaign for America’s Future, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies and Democratic Socialists of America, which runs the huge annual “progressive” love fest in Washington D.C., the America’s Future Now gathering.
(more…)
05/11/13
Remembering Herb Romerstein: A Patriot Passes
By: Trevor Loudon
New Zeal
I’ve just learned that a personal hero of mine has died. Herb Romerstein was the US’ leading authority on communism, a scholar of high repute and a gentleman.
Herb Romerstein
I worked with Herb in the early days of my Barack Obama research. He was very helpful in exposing the roles of Alice Palmer and David Canter in particular, in the whole Obama “conspiracy.”
Herb, Max Friedman, Cliff Kincaid and I worked together for some months piecing together Obama’s backers in the communist movement. I got to meet Herb several times, usually with his wife Pat. In our last meetings, it was saddening to see Herb’s health failing and warming to see how Pat looked out for him and protected him.
Herb was a hero of the Cold War. He fought the communists both with a rifle and a pen. The pen inflicted by far the most damage to their movement. As an ex-communist himself, Herb knew the movement inside out. He could not be fooled by their lies and propaganda, as many scholars and commentators are.
Max Friedman, Herb Romerstein, Cliff Kincaid, Trevor Loudon in Washington D.C. (August 2008)
My friend Paul Kengor has penned a tribute to Herb for The American Spectator.
Please read it. Every American patriot needs to know how much they owe this great man.
Death of a Cold Warrior and national treasure.
Every human life is special, unique, unrepeatable — to borrow from Pope John Paul II. Every loss of life is a loss. Some losses, however, seem larger, leaving a void no one else can fill. When some people go, too much goes with them. That’s undoubtedly the case with the loss of Herbert Romerstein, who died this week after a long illness. With Herb’s passing, we lose not only a good guy, but a vast reservoir of knowledge that is not replaceable. If only we could have downloaded the man’s brain. Alas, we could not, and our knowledge of the 20th century is suddenly less than it was.
Herb knew the Cold War and communist movement unlike anyone. He understood it because he lived it and breathed it. Born in Brooklyn in 1931, he himself had been a communist, having joined the Communist Youth League before becoming a card-carrying member of Communist Party USA (CPUSA). He broke ranks over 60 years ago, the final straw being the Korean War, which made clear to him that he was dealing with inveterate liars, whether in Korea, Moscow, or among communists on the home-front. He went on to become one of America’s best anti-communists and most respected authorities, regularly testifying before Congress. He became a chief investigator for the House Committee on Internal Security. In the 1980s, he joined the Reagan administration, where his full-time job at the U.S. Information Agency was to counter Soviet disinformation, a duty for which few were so well-equipped or enthusiastic. He relished the role of taking on professional Soviet propagandists such as Georgi Arbatov and Valentin Falin. Later, he did the highly touted analysis of the Venona transcripts, which he published as The Venona Secrets.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot do justice to how this translated into action. I never tire of listening to stories from Herb’s longtime friend Charlie Wiley on how they penetrated the communist-run World Youth Festivals in the 1950s, or challenged a Soviet official successfully spooning the Party line to open-mouthed progressives at the All Souls Church in New York, or tossed a wrench into this or that meeting of communist youth leaders. Guys like this were one of a kind who lived life to its fullest. They were warriors — unafraid, cheerful, colorful Cold Warriors.
I first met Herb Romerstein in June 2005. I was writing a book on Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War, which became The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. I was nearing the end of the manuscript when I got a remarkable email from Marko Suprun, whose father had survived the 1930s Ukrainian genocide perpetrated by Stalin. I didn’t know Marko, but he brought to my attention a stunning document, a highly sensitive May 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the Soviet Union, the odious Yuri Andropov. The letter concerned a secret offer by Senator Ted Kennedy that, in effect, sought to undermine President Reagan’s security policy and perhaps his reelection bid. It allegedly came from Soviet archives in Moscow. I embarked upon a long process of confirming the letter’s authenticity. I exchanged emails with Walter Zaryckyj, who had turned the document over to Marko for translation. Walter immediately recommended I contact Herb Romerstein. If anyone could confirm this, it was Herb, said Walter, describing Herb as a “national treasure.”
I talked to Herb and he assuaged me. “Don’t worry,” he assured. “It’s real. Take it to the bank.”
I spent the next few months confirming what Herb had told me from the outset. Yes, it was real.
This began a partnership and friendship. Herb loved the fact that I was a Cold War researcher half his age and planning to do more, including a book on Cold War dupes — a unique category of Cold War individual that Herb knew too well. He took me under his wing, eager to provide counsel on anything related to the Cold War. Having access to his mind was like having the Library of Congress, the FBI files, the Soviet archives, Daily Worker microfiche, thousands of congressional reports, and CPUSA holdings all rolled into one, retrievable by a quick phone call or email from my BlackBerry. The process would go something like this: “Hi, Herb. A question on Arthur Miller: Did he ever join the Party?” The response was instantaneous: “In 1956, Arthur Miller testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. They published his Party application card. You can find it in the official report on the hearings. He wrote for New Masses, the Daily Worker loved him….”
We would meet in-person (less often, unfortunately) during my visits to Washington to do research. Herb introduced me to the Soviet Comintern Archives on CPUSA. He showed me how to use them, helped me get my library card — covering all bases. I fondly remember when he first introduced me to M. Stanton Evans. We spent hours at Stan’s office one summer afternoon going over everything imaginable on Soviet penetration of the Roosevelt administration and other vital areas in the 1930s and 1940s. We also had lunch at the Hawk n’ Dove on Capitol Hill, a favorite place of Herb and Stan.
Why their interest in me? Because, as they openly admitted, they were getting old and “wouldn’t be around much longer.” They were hoping I would be. There weren’t many of them left. I was one of a very small few to whom they might pass the torch.
Fittingly, on my desk right now is a copy of Herb’s final work, Stalin’s Secret Agents, co-authored with Stan Evans. It’s a superb must-read. We’ve waited years for the book’s material on Alger Hiss alone.
Certain Herb aphorisms related to the Cold War stick in my mind, resounding there in the sound of his scratchy, whispery voice:
I asked him if there was a particular group of Americans most susceptible to being duped by communists. His immediate answer: “The Religious Left, Paul, especially from the mainline Protestant denominations. They were the biggest suckers of them all.”
And what of American communists, especially those who went so far as to join CPUSA? Said Herb: “They were loyal Soviet patriots.” As Herb knew, they were dedicated first and foremost to Mother Russia. CPUSA members “were not the useful idiots,” not the “suckers;” they were not the dupes. Quite the contrary, said Herb: “They were fully aware of exactly what they were doing. They manipulated the useful idiots on behalf of Soviet interests.”
Another: “from 1919, when it [the American Communist Party] was formed, to 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was under total Soviet control.”
And then there were his judicious warnings about this or that suspected communist: “Be careful, Paul. That guy was not a communist. He was a fellow traveler, to some degree — a dupe — but not a communist. And the other guy, he was a small ‘c’ communist who never joined the Party.”
That last warning holds a crucial lesson very revealing of Herb Romerstein and his work: He was no bomb-thrower. He was the epitome of responsible, informed anti-communism. He was careful about drawing the necessary lines of distinction between a liberal, a liberal anti-communist, a genuine progressive, a closet communist masquerading as a “progressive,” a socialist, a small “c” or big “C” communist/Communist, a Party member or non-Party member, and so forth. He never wanted to falsely accuse anyone. I doubt his detractors on the left will pause to credit him for such prudence. For many on the left, every anti-communist rightly concerned with Soviet agents or agents of influence was merely another burgeoning Joe McCarthy. (Click here for a particularly cruel piece on Herb by Dana Milbank.)
Herb Romerstein was anything but. And he wanted those of us who follow in his footsteps, or who are concerned about communism still — and about truth above all — to be likewise as careful and thoughtful. Perhaps our best tribute to Herb’s memory would be to do our best to expose what he exposed and remind Americans and the world of what he reminded.
Herbert Romerstein, indeed a national treasure. A happy warrior who fought the good fight, and left the wrong side for the right side. Well done, my friend. Rest in peace.
Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. He is author of the new book The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor. His other books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.
In Memoriam
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