11/18/15

Terrorism, not Climate Change, Kills People

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

On November 13, the same day as the terrorist attacks in Paris, USA Today ran a full-page ad from billionaire Tom Steyer’s group NextGen Climate highlighting the alleged global threat from climate change. As hundreds of people were being injured or killed in Paris, the ad featured these quotes about the “climate crisis:”

  • Hillary Clinton: “An existential threat”
  • Bernie Sanders: “The greatest threat facing the planet”
  • Martin O’Malley: “Critical threat to our economy”

In a new development, we have just learned from Judicial Watch that Hillary Clinton was characterized by her Muslim-connected aide, Huma Abedin, as being “very confused” about the world leaders she was supposed to be communicating with as secretary of state. The confusion may also be reflected in Mrs. Clinton’s bizarre utterance that so-called climate change is an “existential threat” that is somehow comparable to Russian nuclear weapons, which could reduce America to a burned-out cinder.

Mrs. Clinton is not alone, however. All of the Democrats running for president, plus former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, want to treat changes in the weather as something to be addressed through new treaties, international agreements and global tax schemes. This campaign has taken precedence over defeating international terrorism.

At the Democratic Party debate this past weekend, Sanders claimed that “Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism and if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to see countries all over the world—this is what the CIA says—they’re going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops and you’re going to see all kinds of international conflict…”

So from one disputed claim about people causing climate change, they have reached another disputed claim that climate change is causing people to commit terrorism.

On the same day as the Paris attacks, former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore was staging his 24-hour climate change telethon from the foot of the Eiffel Tower to focus attention on this month’s United Nations climate summit in Paris. The attacks forced him to pull the plug on the event after five hours.

In advance of his ill-fated climate change telethon, People magazine asked Gore which Democrat he was endorsing for president. “It’s still too early, in my opinion, to endorse a candidate or pick a candidate,” he said.

But why is his endorsement worth anything? Al Gore has become a very rich man, a one percenter. He and his partners sold Current TV (Gore personally netted an estimated $100 million of the $500 million sale price) to the terrorist-supporting Middle Eastern oil and gas dictatorship of Qatar.

A member of Apple, Inc.’s board of directors, Gore is today worth as much as $170 million. Even the New York Times has wondered if his climate change campaign is designed to make himself rich, while preserving his lifestyle as an elite member of the one percent.

His telethon carried the official title of “Live Earth: 24 Hours of Reality.” The reality of terrorism got in the way of the broadcast, featuring various rock stars and co-sponsored by Arianna Huffington’s television channel, HuffPost Live.

Gore and his partners sold Current TV to Qatar so another Al Jazeera spin-off could be piped into American homes. The Al Jazeera America channel was the result, and it is now publishing nonsense like the piece by Rami G. Khourientitled, “Military responses alone will not defeat ISIL.”

Khouri acknowledges that “Religion is critical for shaping the theological concept of the Islamic State and the wider Caliphate…” But, he says, “it may not be the most important reason why individuals go there to live, work and do battle.” He lists “eight reasons why people across Islamic societies join or support ISIL.”

But none of the “reasons” for the rise of the Islamic State, in his analysis, consists of the hate-filled passages from the Koran which guide their beliefs and actions.

Instead, we are told, in reason number four, that their motivations include “To live among like-minded people in a society defined by camaraderie, peace, justice and wholesome family life.” Reason number six is “To find meaning, direction and purpose to one’s personal life, or to escape family or personal problems, loneliness or alienation.”

We are supposed to believe this may be why terrorists opened fire on people in Paris. This is why the Islamic State beheads people or burns them alive?

It is easy to forget that the website publishing this material is financed by a Middle Eastern dictatorship that promotes Islamic terrorism. Like the notion of the “existential threat” allegedly posed by climate change, Al Jazeera America constitutes a diversion from what really threatens America, our way of life, and our people. Perhaps that was the intention all along.

As serious as this is, the problem of foreign propaganda in the U.S. media market could get far worse. Television producer Jerry Kenney notes that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is planning to remove the barriers to broadcast station ownership by foreigners, a move that would enable American broadcasters to sell out to foreign interests, just like Gore did. The FCC could allow the sale of local broadcast stations and other media properties to the Chinese, Russian and Mexican governments, or to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The public must respond to what the FCC is planning to do by December 21.

04/7/15

Leading Conservatives Call on Apple to Pull Out of Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran Until They Stop Torturing Their Gay Citizens

By: John Hawkins
Right Wing News

Last week, I got together with Bruce Carroll from Gay Patriot to write a letter calling on Apple to live up to their publicly stated principles by pulling out of countries that murder their citizens for being gay. After the letter was written, we asked some other conservatives to sign on with us. A full list of signatories follows.

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Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook said,

“Our message, to people around the country and around the world, is this: Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. Regardless of what the law might allow in Indiana or Arkansas, we will never tolerate discrimination.

…This is about how we treat each other as human beings…  Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.”

Tim Cook’s message seems rather ironic in light of the fact that Apple willingly does business with some of the most virulently anti-gay nations on the planet.

According to their Islamic-based governments, homosexuality is punishable by death in Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran.  So not only is it willing to “tolerate discrimination” in those countries, Apple is also happy to sell an iPod to the people who are murdering gays so they can listen to some cheery music when they’re done. What these nations are doing to their gay communities is despicable and should be condemned by every decent person. We hope Tim Cook believes that as well.

Tim Cook says that, “Opposing discrimination takes courage,” and we agree.  We call on Mr. Cook to live up to our shared principles by pulling Apple out of Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran until they stop their official government policies of jailing and murdering gays and lesbians.

Sincerely,

Bruce Carroll, Gay Patriot
John Hawkins, Right Wing News
Mike Adams, columnist and professor
Ali A. Akbar, Black Conservatives Fund
Morgan Brittany, Politichicks
Jay Caruso, Pocket Full of Liberty
Ben Chapman, Chapman GOP
Steven Crowder, Comedian, FOX News
Brandon Darby, Breitbart
Ed Dean, radio host
Jeff Dunetz, Yid with Lid
JR Elliott, Redflagnews
Kristin Fecteau, The Campaign to Free America
Jack Furnari, Bizpac Review
Debra Heine, Nice Deb & PJ Media
Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit
Quin Hillyer, conservative columnist
John Hinderaker, PowerLine
Ben Howe, founder of Mister Smith Media
Tony Katz, talk radio host
Dana Loesch, Radio Host and The Blaze TV
Dr. Gina Loudon, Politichicks
Paul Mirengoff, PowerLine
Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Noisy Room
Ann-Marie Murrell, Politichicks
Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation
Joshua Riddle, Young Conservatives
Tiffiny Ruegner, Right Wing News
Evan Sayet, comedian
Ben Shapiro, Truth Revolt
Kurt Schlichter, columnist.
Jason Weingartner, Young Republican National Federation
Rusty Weiss, Mental Recession

04/1/15

The Real Power of the One Percent

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Statistics show that 1.6 percent of the population identifies itself as gay or lesbian. But judging from the hysteria over Indiana’s religious freedom law, it seems that many of them are in positions of power in the media. These power brokers are not only openly gay, but also anti-Christian. Even Holy Week hasn’t kept them from demonstrating their anti-Christian animus.

Indiana’s Republican Governor Mike Pence spoke on Tuesday about the media misinformation over his state’s religious freedom bill. The “perception problem” he referred to is of the liberal media’s making. In fact, one can argue that the misperception was deliberately created by the media.

“I have to tell you,” he said to the press and the public, “that the gross mischaracterizations about this bill early on and some of the reckless reporting by some in the media about what this bill was all about was deeply disappointing to me and to millions of Hoosiers.” He called the coverage a “smear.”

Pence was reluctant to identify the source of the bias—homosexual influence in the major media. But until conservative politicians step forward to identity the real source of the problem, the homosexuals will continue to win the public relations battle and hide behind the façade of “objective” coverage when none exists. The fact is that the liberal media and the gay lobby are essentially one and the same.

It’s this kind of media bias that should not have come as a surprise to Pence, a former member of Congress and a strong conservative.

Liberal media bias is an old problem. The new wrinkle over the last several years has been the relentless promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.

Two years ago a Pew Research Center study of news media coverage of the gay marriage debate found that “Stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1.” Pew reported, “The findings show how same-sex marriage supporters have had a clear message and succeeded in getting that message across all sectors of mainstream media.”

The media know they’re biased, of course. They are careful to conceal the depth and extent of the bias, in the sense that few members of the public are being told that most of the major news organizations are financial backers of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). Literally all of the major media, ranging from MSNBC on the left to Fox News on the right, are in bed with the NLGJA.

However, we were somewhat surprised to find that even a financial channel such as CNBC is not above the slanted coverage. On Monday, as we reported, coverage of the markets and economics gave way to a lengthy interview with open lesbian Kara Swisher, who smeared opponents of gay rights as the equivalent of racists.

Regardless of what happens in Indiana, where Pence has vowed to clarify the statute, the issue won’t go away.

The Indiana case should serve as a lesson in how the media distort the news. The clear homosexual/media strategy, in this case, has been to redefine discrimination as the failure to do what homosexuals have demanded that you do, without explaining to the public how the meaning of the term has been changed to meet the demands of the powerful gay lobby.

Since our major media organs are openly pro-homosexual, we have to conclude that the bias in the Indiana case is deliberately designed to fool the American people into thinking that homosexuals are the victims when they are, in fact, the victimizers.

In practical terms, this bias is reflected in the typical ongoing failure of the media to quote pro-family and Christian voices, such as American Family Association of Indiana Executive Director Micah Clark, who has called the claim that the law bestows a “license to discriminate” as “perhaps the biggest lie about this law.” Pence said much the same thing at this press conference.

If our media had simply bothered to cover the other side of the story, rather than rely on pro-homosexual interest groups, we might have gotten some truth and facts in the national debate.

The victims of this bias, unfortunately, include top CEOs and businesspeople, such as Marriott International CEO Arne Sorensen, who called Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act “madness.”

Upon reflection, Sorensen must himself be mad or completely misinformed. Or, perhaps, he’s just pandering to homosexuals for their business. Marriott was named Corporation of the Year by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in 2014. It received a 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index.”

The Human Rights Campaign is the group whose co-founder, Terry Bean, has been arrested on child sex-abuse charges.

Perhaps people like Sorensen don’t want to know the facts and simply don’t care whether the rights of Christians are violated in the pursuit of providing special rights for homosexuals.

Micah Clark, of the American Family Association (AFA) of Indiana, explains how the Indiana law works: “This law does not allow a person of faith to deny service to someone, nor should it,” he points out. “No Christian bakery owner should say that people involved in homosexual behavior couldn’t shop in their bakery. That, in my opinion is wrong, un-Christian and discriminatory unless the patron is misbehaving ( i.e., ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’). However, when a customer seeks special participation from the baker, asking him or her to specially decorate a ‘gay’ wedding cake and come set it up at a homosexual wedding, then there is a very different line crossed, and a problem for most people of faith.”

The Indiana law attempts to protect people of faith from being forced to participate in activities that they have religious objections to.

The American Family Association has noted the following four cases in states without a religious freedom law involving Christian business owners being prosecuted, fined or punished for refusing to bow to homosexual demands:

  • Washington: Florist Barronelle Stutzman was fined by the state for not providing flowers for a homosexual wedding.
  • New Mexico: Photographer Elaine Huguenin was ordered by the state to give a lesbian $7,000 for declining to take pictures of a lesbian wedding.
  • Oregon: Aaron and Melissa Klein were fined $150,000 by the state for refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.
  • Kentucky: Blaine Adamson was ordered by the city of Lexington to undergo “sensitivity training” for refusing to print T-shirts for a gay pride festival.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal group involved in several of these cases, says there are three key issues at stake:

  • Whether the government can force Americans in expressive professions to communicate messages and ideas against their will
  • The freedom of Americans to live and do business according to the teachings of their faith and the dictates of their conscience
  • Whether Americans should be forced to compromise freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution

The case of the florist in Richland, Washington, Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, illustrates the stakes. She is being sued by the Attorney General because she declined to decorate for a same-sex ceremony and may be forced into financial bankruptcy.

Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington state has commented about the case:  “…there’s a problem with the argument that she discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. She has consistently and happily done business with people who identify as gay for years, including the individuals involved in this case. She considered them friends.” What she objected to was being part of a same-sex marriage ceremony.

In this case, as noted by her attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a state judge ruled that the government can force her to do custom design work and provide wedding support services “even if she has a religious conviction that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

As such, this is a violation of the basic God-given right to freedom of religion that the founders of the United States gave to the American people. It is as sacred as freedom of the press.

This is the issue: In the name of “non-discrimination,” homosexuals want to force Christians and other religious believers to violate the principles of their faith. But this is precisely the point that has been deliberately obscured by a media that functions as the propaganda arm of the militant gay lobby.

ADF Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner noted, “The couple had no problem getting the flowers they needed. In fact, they received several offers for free flowers. So, where’s the tolerance for Barronelle Stutzman? It’s hard to believe that Barronelle should prepare to have everything she has earned and built seized by the state just because of her beliefs about marriage.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook, an open homosexual, attacked Indiana’s religious freedom law, saying, “There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country.” What is dangerous is how a small minority is trying to dictate the acceptance of their lifestyle by the majority. They have gotten this far because the same small minority also seems to control major centers of media and corporate power in the United States.

02/11/15

Will Saudi Prince Thwart Terror Probes?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

CNN has a problem: one of its hosts, Michael Smerconish, is uncovering evidence about the Saudi role in 9/11. But a CNN analyst, Frances Townsend, has been rubbing elbows with one of the alleged Saudi financiers of al-Qaeda. Perhaps they ought to get together and compare notes.

The strange story begins with Smerconish on his CNN show last Saturday interviewing attorney Sean Carter, who recently took a sworn statement from 9/11’s so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui.

Convicted terrorist Moussaoui, speaking from behind federal prison walls, had told Carter and other attorneys suing Saudi Arabia over its role in 9/11 that three major Saudi figures, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Prince Turki al-Faisal, were on a list of donors to al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. The Saudi regime flatly denied the allegations and dismissed Moussaoui as a lunatic.

Alwaleed stands out as the Saudi on the list who could most be affected by the disclosure. He is the largest individual foreign investor in the United States, with investments in 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Fox News; TimeWarner, the parent company of CNN; Citigroup; Twitter; and Apple. He has close personal relationships with corporate America’s CEOs, including, and especially, Rupert Murdoch.

Carter told Smerconish that he had confidence in the veracity of the allegations made by Moussaoui. “We actually brought some subject matter experts, counterterrorism experts with us so that we would be able to sort of gut check what he was saying throughout the testimony. And he provided incredibly detailed testimony about al Qaeda’s operations during that period, the organizational structure and who was responsible for certain activities, the nature of al Qaeda’s facilities within Kandahar [Afghanistan] at that time, and everything he said when he was providing this very detailed, directly responsive testimony checked out for us.”

Showing no deference to the prince, known as “His Royal Highness,” Smerconish said on his CNN show that the 28 classified pages of a congressional report on the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks should be released to the public. These pages reportedly concern Saudi financing of al-Qaeda, and may even name the top Saudis implicated in the 9/11 attacks.

Acting unconcerned, Alwaleed seems to be proceeding with business as usual. In fact, it was recently revealed that Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, participated in a business meeting with Alwaleed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) reported that the meeting was about “political, business and economic issues.”

What is also astonishing about the meeting was the participation of CNN National Security Analyst Frances Townsend, who previously served as Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and chaired the Homeland Security Council from May 2004 until January 2008.

If anyone should be aware of the role of Alwaleed and other Saudis in financing al-Qaeda, it is Townsend.

In addition to serving as an analyst for CNN, Townsend is currently Executive Vice President for Worldwide Government, Legal and Business Affairs at MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings. The firm is wholly owned by billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman and maintains investments in cosmetics, entertainment, biotechnology and military equipment.

Townsend’s involvement in the meeting with Alwaleed assumes even more significance because she serves as president of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which is currently demanding that Twitter “immediately take action and adopt policies to stop extremists from misusing the social network.”

CEP President Townsend and CEP Chief Executive Officer Ambassador Mark Wallace co-authored a letter to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo “seeking an opportunity to discuss solutions to the growing crisis we face from extremists seeking to weaponize Twitter and commit cyber-jihad. Twitter rebuffed CEP’s invitation.”

But it was Alwaleed who invested $300 million in Twitter in late 2011. “Twitter is a very strategic investment for us,” he said at the time. Awaleed’s KHC even posted a video of the meeting. “During the meeting,” KHC reports, “Mr. Costolo thanked the Prince for giving him the opportunity to meet with him.”

It appears that the Townsend/Wallace letter that went to Costolo, and was copied to four different Twitter executives, should have gone to Alwaleed personally.

In 2005, Townsend, then Homeland Security Adviser to President George W. Bush, praised what she said was Saudi Arabia’s increasingly effective response to terrorism. “The Saudis really are making substantial progress,” she said.

A transcript from a counterterrorism conference in Saudi Arabia quoted her as praising “the leadership and commitment the Saudis have shown towards finding practical and effective ways to fight terrorism…” She said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were engaged in a “critically important strategic partnership.”

But it appears that Townsend and other U.S. officials may have been privy to other information that cast doubt on Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism efforts.

In 2007, according to a leaked cable, The New York Times reported that Townsend had “told her Saudi counterparts in Riyadh” that President Bush was “quite concerned” about the level of cooperation the U.S. was getting from the Saudis.

It has, of course, been widely reported that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis and that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a Saudi as well. The bulk of the terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay were from Saudi Arabia. What’s more, numerous reports implicate Saudi Arabia in funding the Islamic State, known as ISIS.

Former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told Patrick Cockburn of the British newspaper The Independent, “I believe that the failure to shine a full light on Saudi actions and particularly its involvement in 9/11 has contributed to the Saudi ability to continue to engage in actions that are damaging to the U.S.—and in particular their support for ISIS.”

After the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi regime launched a public relations strategy in the U.S. that was analyzed in the academic paper, “Message strategies of Saudi Arabia’s image restoration campaign after 9/11.” The analysis notes that Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s donation of $10 million to a fund for 9/11 victims and their families was part of this campaign. But the donation was rejected by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after Alwaleed blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.

The Alwaleed donation was described in the academic paper as part of the Saudi regime’s “Good Intentions” ploy to repair its battered image as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In the wake of Moussaoui’s allegations, it would appear that Alwaleed may be counting on his status as “the largest individual foreign investor” in the United States to discourage any more investigations into his financial activities.

As President Obama seeks Congressional support for a war against ISIS, with Saudi Arabia as an alleged ally in the fight, it would seem that the Saudi role in funding the Global Jihad Movement should take center stage.

But it appears that major American news organizations are compromised by their financial ties to the Saudis.