Tag Archives: Britain

04/7/16

Super Rich on the Scrounge!

By: Chris Knowles

Super Rich on the Scrounge in the 21st Century

Just been reading about David Cameron and his feeble excuses regarding the Panama Papers Scandal:

“…he confessed that he owned shares in the tax haven fund, which he sold for £31,500 just before becoming prime minister in 2010” (1)

We are not talking about the middle classes here, the mere millionaires and multimillionaires who deserve to reap the rewards of their hard work and industry for themselves and their families. We are talking about the real rich who use their wealth to control the rules of the global game in their own favour at the expense of everyone else.

In the latest Cameron exploit, hypocrisy finally rises to the surface. This hypocrite, like his Icelandic collaborator in the NWO, really needs to resign. He speak with fork tongue and can never be trusted!

Continue reading →

12/5/15

Putin’s “War on Terror” Could Backfire

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

There can be no doubt that the Russians are winning the Middle East propaganda war. But it’s not just the Marxist far-left that is willing to believe whatever Vladimir Putin and his mouthpiece Russia Today (RT) are saying. Some conservatives and self-described Tea Party leaders have also accepted the disinformation the Russians are putting out, even to the extent of affirming the Russian president as a Christian statesman leading the global war on terror.

Consider Chuck Baldwin’s piece, “Rootin’ for Putin,” which insists that “Russia’s Vladimir Putin is the only one fighting a Just War in the Middle East right now.” Baldwin, a Christian pastor “dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded,” was the presidential candidate in 2008 of the Constitution Party, a group associated with the late conservative icon Howard Phillips.

It is simply amazing that any conservative would insist that Putin, who, despite dropping the communist label is still allied with Iran, Communist China, North Korea and Cuba, is somehow doing the right thing in Syria, a long-time Soviet/Russian client state. What Putin is doing is entirely consistent with what the Soviets always did. They are trying to save a client state from what started out as a popular rebellion.

In his column, Baldwin went on to label Barack Obama, David Cameron of Britain, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey as “international gangsters.”

It is true that Obama, through a few of America’s Arab “allies,” has been supporting the cause of some jihadists and terrorists in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been implicated in these dangerous schemes, one of which culminated in the Benghazi massacre of four Americans in Libya. That was a treasonous action that should sink Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and could have justified impeachment charges against Obama himself. Mrs. Clinton was Obama’s Secretary of State at the time.

These operations in the Middle East have been characterized by former CIA officer Clare Lopez of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi as “switching sides in the War on Terror.”

But the idea that Putin has clean hands in the Middle East is absolutely ridiculous. Considering that he was a Soviet KGB spy and actually headed one of the KGB’s successor agencies, the idea that Putin has suddenly had a Damascus Road conversion to Christianity is simply ludicrous. His foreign policy is very similar to that of the old Soviet Union.

Since the foreign policy has mostly remained the same, Soviet financing and sponsorship of international terrorist networks, many of them linked to Arab and Muslim groups, also have to be taken into consideration here. It is reasonable to assume that the Russians have maintained at least parts of these networks for a purpose that we see in the backing of Bashar Assad in Syria. Indeed, writer and researcher Christian Gomez has traced the roots of ISIS to the Islamic Revival Party, created by the KGB, during the final days of the old Soviet Union. U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, has noted that the Russians are doing little in Syria to fight ISIS terrorists and that “Everything they [the Russians] are doing is to support Assad, to keep Assad in power.” In other words, Putin is continuing a clever Soviet-style strategy that seeks to maintain Assad in power while using ISIS for his own purposes. One of those purposes, as reflected in RT propaganda, is to make Putin look like a terrorist fighter.

Baldwin isn’t the only personality on the right duped by Putin and his propaganda machine. The CEO of a group calling itself simply the Tea Party has distributed an article claiming that Russia has produced “stunning photographic evidence” that ISIS oil was being smuggled into Turkey on an industrial scale.

The “stunning photographic evidence” shows nothing of the sort. Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider examined the Russian maps and found that the three main routes the Russians claim ISIS had allegedly been using to transport illicit oil into Turkey are not primarily controlled by the Islamic State. Turkish President Erdogan has countered: “Who is buying oil (from ISIS)? Let me say it. George Haswani, holder of a Russian passport and a Syrian national, is one of the biggest merchants in this business.” He noted that the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Haswani, who was also placed on an EU sanctions list, “for serving as middleman for oil purchases by the Syrian regime from the ISIS group.”

If you haven’t heard about the sanctions on the individuals and networks providing support to Syria and facilitating Syrian oil purchases from ISIS, you are a victim of the slick propaganda that is being spread around the world by such outlets as RT. It is a fact that the Russian claims against Turkey are taking precedence, even in the Western media, over the facts on the ground, as determined not only by the U.S. Treasury but the U.S. Army. Colonel Warren said, “We flatly reject any notion that the Turks are somehow working with ISIL,” he said. “That is preposterous.”

The “Tea Party” article about the Russian claims was lifted directly from the Infowars.com site of Russian apologist Alex Jones, who just scored a major interview with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. No respectable Tea Party group should have anything to do with Alex Jones, who defended the Russian invasion of its former republic Georgia in 2008. Trump’s decision toappear on his show was extremely foolish. He apparently was not aware that Jones promotes claims that actual terrorist attacks, such as the Boston Marathon bombings carried out by two Muslims from Russia, were “false flags” perpetrated by U.S. police and law enforcement agencies. His website ran a “Voice of Russia”story claiming the dead and wounded were actors plastered with fake blood.

Rather than treat Putin as a good guy or ally, GOP presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio (FL) argues that Turkey is a member of NATO and an ally that “deserves the full backing of the United States.” He noted that the Russians were “targeting Turkmen-populated pockets of northern Syria rather than territory controlled by ISIS” and that “Most Russian military strikes since the end of September have been non-ISIS targets, including many civilian areas, revealing that Russia does not share our interest in confronting and defeating ISIS but instead is intent on propping up the Assad regime.”

Before he assumed the role as a leader of the Sunnis in the Middle East, mobilizing forces against Shite Iran and Syria, Erdogan was known for his anti-Soviet views. Indeed, he was an anti-communist in his youth. As a result of Russia’s increased military involvement in Syria, he seems to have awakened to the fact that Putin has returned to his Soviet roots and that Turkey’s future lies with NATO and the West. Turkey joined NATO, originally conceived as an anti-Soviet military alliance, in 1952.

Assuming Erdogan is an Islamist of some kind, as some conservatives contend, it might make strategic sense for the West to back him for that reason alone in his battle with Russia. After all, most of Russia’s 14 million Muslims are Sunnis. RT itself recently highlighted how thousands of Muslims had gathered in central Moscow “to witness the opening of one of the biggest mosques in Europe.” The ceremony was attended by Putin and Erdogan, who had been considered to be on friendly terms.

Their relationship turned sour after Turkey shot down the Russian war plane, and it seems to be deteriorating further.

As noted by Ilya Arkhipov of Bloomberg Business, Putin used his annual state-of-the-nation address to attack Turkey and Erdogan in very personal and religious terms. Putin said, “Only Allah knows why they did this. And it seems that Allah decided to punish the ruling gang in Turkey by stripping it of common sense and reason.” Analyst Timothy Ash told Bloomberg that “The religious angle being used by Putin is unlikely to go down well in the region, where Erdogan is still seen as a defender of the Sunni faith.”

One observer has noted, in regard to Russian involvement in Arab/Muslim terrorism and now ISIS, that the monster that the USSR created may have grown too big, and that it may eventually attack its creator.  In the case of Turkey, Putin is facing a Muslim problem of his own making.

10/7/15

Putin’s “Moral Clarity” Disguises Evil Intent

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

We as a nation are discussing ways to isolate and treat mental illness in society. How do we identify those who are mentally ill and get them help? These questions are also relevant on the world stage, as Russian President Vladimir Putin poses as the savior of the world.

You know that moral confusion is taking hold in society when a conservative website hails Vladimir Putin for his “moral clarity” in the War on Terror, and compares him to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet, Dr. Robin McFee, who generally focuses on Weapons of Mass Destruction preparedness as well as medical matters, writes that Putin, who has invaded Ukraine and is now backing the Assad dictatorship in Syria with troops and weapons, “has emerged as the go to global statesmen [sic] on the world stage” because he gave a U.N. speech describing chaos in the Middle East resulting from President Obama’s policies.

Both Obama and Putin have created instability in the Middle East, but that doesn’t mean that one is a statesman and the other is not. It may mean that they are both working in tandem to reduce American influence in the region, just as they partnered on behalf of a nuclear deal with Iran.

Regarding their U.N. speeches, McFee wrote, “Both Netanyahu and Putin shared a refreshing moral clarity, presenting an unvarnished snapshot of the world as it is, the threats awaiting us, and gave an unfiltered insight into the challenges they face, as well as approaches each will take in the protection of their respective nation’s interests and sovereignty.”

The idea that Putin is a leader we should admire is a notion that is nonsensical on its face. He gave asylum to NSA defector Edward Snowden, who still lives in Russia. In a recent edition of The Intelligencer, the journal of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), Peter Oleson writes about how Snowden’s disclosures have facilitated the activities of the Islamic State—a group that Putin claims he opposes—along with other American enemies and adversaries.

Oleson, a former assistant director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who served as senior intelligence policy advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense Policy, writes, “The damage to US intelligence has been extensive. Snowden leaked the identities of over 1,000 targets of US intelligence and 31,000 files revealing what US policymakers want intelligence to provide (i.e., a list revealing what the US doesn’t know). His releases contain sufficient detail to identify US and allied intelligence officers. He revealed previously secret details of the US intelligence budget.”

He goes on, “Perhaps even more significant is the exposure of specific sources and methods and techniques US intelligence uses. Snowden has exposed how the US tracks terrorists via e-mails, social media, and cell phones.”

These are some of the same terrorists running wild in the Middle East that Putin says he opposes.

Indeed, Oleson notes that “The MI-5 head warned that the Snowden leaks undermined British security as concerns grow over British Islamists fighting in Syria. He also revealed the hacking techniques of NSA’s Tailored Access Office, the group that focuses on difficult electronic targets. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has altered his communications to avoid detection. Electronic eavesdropping techniques used against Al Qaeda in Iraq no longer work.”

Summarizing the damage Snowden has done, Oleson concludes that Snowden is a traitor to the United States and quite possibly a spy.

There are other reasons to categorically reject the notion that Putin is a statesman who sees the world like Israel’s Netanyahu. The Russians created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to destroy Israel. Israel has been terrorized by Soviet/Russian trained terrorists for decades.

But Putin, a former KGB colonel, wanted the world to forget this record of backing international terrorism when he spoke to the U.N.

McFee approvingly quotes Putin as saying in his U.N. speech, “We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted. This may result in the global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions, especially given that Islamic State camps train militants from many countries, including the European countries.”

She then adds, “Beyond a few glaringly obvious issues, like Russian influence in Iran, and criminal money laundering, nevertheless, Putin highlights important facts.”

“Russian influence in Iran?” Is that how Russian sponsorship of the Iranian regime and its nuclear weapons program is best described?

Relegating “Russian influence in Iran” to a throwaway line ignores the terrorism this alliance has meant for the Middle East and the world. It is the Iranian relationship with Syria and Russia that Putin is determined to support in the Middle East. Iranian-supported terrorist groups are just as lethal as the Islamic State, and Netanyahu knows it. That’s why he has pleaded with Putin, to no avail, to look the other way when Israel bombs Syrian and Iranian supply lines for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The fact that Putin invaded Ukraine, and that his separatist forces brought down a civilian airliner over areas they control, should also disabuse us of any notion that he is a moral statesman on the world stage. Of course, Putin also kills journalists and opposition figures. But particularly gruesome ways of killing, such as the poisoning of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, are reserved for those who spill secrets about Putin and his KGB comrades. Litvinenko disclosed Russian training of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

McFee’s praise for Putin’s “moral clarity on radical Islam at the U.N.” ignores the evidence that the Russians have their fingerprints all over the activities of the Islamic State, not only through facilitating Snowden’s disclosures but through the provision of actual manpower.

The Homeland Security Committee’s recent report on foreign fighters in the Islamic State lists Russia as number four among the top 10 countries of origin. Russia has supplied 1,700 fighters. The United States isn’t even in the top 10. Russia has done little to stop this flow of people to the Islamic State, suggesting that some are leaving under the watchful eye of Putin’s intelligence services. One Islamic State military commander is, in fact, considered a Russian plant.

Russia may not control every faction of the Islamic State, but it’s a sure bet that Putin’s intelligence operatives are in charge of at least some of them. It is significant that initial Russian airstrikes were determined to be hitting opponents of Assad, not Islamic State fighters.

As we have seen by the intervention in Syria, the Islamic State serves Russian interests by giving Putin the opportunity to act decisively on behalf of the Syrian regime, which also benefits Iran. Putin comes out on top no matter which side wins and looks like a statesman in the process. At least he looks that way to some.

It’s time to face reality: Putin is a bloodthirsty killer whose only concern is building up Russian power and damaging the interests of the United States. Disgust for Obama should not blind people to that fact.

It’s time to identify Putin as not only mentally unstable, but so bloodthirsty that he constitutes a threat to the Middle East, America and the world. Putin’s nuclear weapons buildup is so alarming that our top generals have called Russia an “existential threat” to the United States.

We’ve identified the problem. So who among the presidential candidates has a plan to rid the world of this lunatic before thousands, or even millions, of Americans die?

09/16/15

Is Trump the Next Reagan?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Party for Socialism and Liberation, one of many communist groups in the U.S., argues that “the long period of reaction that began in the late 1970s and greatly accelerated under Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States is drawing to a close.” Leaving aside the Marxist rhetoric about “reaction,” one has to say there may be some validity to what the communists are saying. After all, Bernie Sanders seems to be leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Marxist Jeremy Corbyn has become head of the Labor Party in Britain, and the socialist New Democratic Party is poised to win national elections in Canada on October 19.

On the Republican side in the U.S., the leading candidate, Donald Trump, seems to have no ideology at all. While he has made illegal immigration into an issue, his statements on other issues demonstrate no coherent outlook on the nature or size of government. On foreign policy, his claim that he could negotiate with Russia’s Vladimir Putin seems to be a reflection of his “Art of the Deal” approach to business matters. But Putin means business, and the Russians can’t be trusted. It’s shocking that Trump thinks he can somehow negotiate a good deal with Putin, whose military position has been enhanced under the presidency of Barack Obama.

In order to understand the Sanders phenomenon, I covered the senator’s Monday night appearance in Manassas, Virginia, where he spoke to a mostly young white audience. The media exaggerated the number of people who turned out, with several reporters putting the size of the crowd at 10,000. But about 2,000 people did, in fact, show up, feeling the “Bern” as Sanders took it to the “billionaire class” and demanded freebies for the “kids,” as he called the students with college debt. He knows that free college has an appeal, like the general socialist notion that government can provide goods and services at little or no cost. It’s a fable that students who should be getting a good education are falling for in increasing numbers. They account for much of the Sanders movement.

Sanders made only one mention of Russia in his Manassas speech, saying that he hoped that the U.S. would join with Russia and other countries to tackle so-called climate change. He didn’t have one word of criticism for Putin over the invasion of Ukraine and threats against other nations, including the U.S.

Russia is a good place to start when analyzing both Sanders and Trump. It is a test of what they know and would do about foreign policy. Sanders, who honeymooned in the old USSR and worked with Communist Party fronts like the U.S. Peace Council, doesn’t want to talk about it. Let’s hope Trump gets pressed on this issue during Wednesday night’s debate on CNN.

On Tuesday, we received more ominous news about Russian military advances. Reuters  reported that General Frank Gorenc, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, cited “alarming” moves by the Russian military since the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its takeover of Crimea. He made the comments at the annual Air Force Association conference.

Air Force Times headlined his remarks, “USAFE commander: Russia catching up with Air Force.” This paper quoted Gorenc as saying, “The advantage that we had from the air, I can honestly say, is shrinking, not only with respect to the aircraft that they’re producing, but the more alarming thing is their ability to create anti-access area denied areas is a challenge that we’re all going to face up to and that we’re all going to have to train to.”

So how would Donald Trump negotiate with Putin over this? It seems the only response the Russians would understand would be for the U.S. to modernize its own military, in order to maintain an advantage.

It’s clear that Sanders and Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn would get along very well. Indeed, Sanders said he was delighted that Corbyn won the election as head of the British Labor Party. Corbyn is considered so far left that it is not unfair to call him a stooge of Putin and Russia.

The Sanders success and the Corbyn victory are two reasons why a communist outfit like the Party for Socialism and Liberation is so optimistic about the future, from the “progressive” perspective.

The Marxist group proclaims, using its familiar jargon, that “A new period of resistance to monopoly capitalism/imperialism is opening up, potentially leading to a revival of not only the trade unions but the revolutionary workers’ movement throughout the world. That this initial revival of anti-capitalism and socialism is being frequently, although not exclusively, expressed through the vehicle of electoral politics is to be expected in the first stage.”

It does indeed look like the socialists and their fellow-travelers are on the move. When you add to their forces a Marxist pope whose anti-capitalist rhetoric has been matched by dealings which enabled President Obama to recognize the communist government of Cuba, one has to acknowledge that the Thatcher and Reagan years are behind us and that their enemies have managed to come out on top.

Against this trend, here in America, we have the spectacle of a businessman leading the Republican race for the presidential nomination who has flip-flopped on every significant public policy issue, including his political party identification. Indeed, The Smoking Gun website cites documents indicating that Trump switched political party affiliations many different times. While Reagan left the Democratic Party and became a Republican, he did this for solid ideological reasons.

Reagan talked issues, while Trump talks about himself, especially his hair. Reagan had a good head of hair and an anti-communist brain to go along with it.

08/6/15

Ernest Moniz, Iran and the Imprimatur of Science

By: Benjamin Weingarten

Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

Watching the Obama administration trot out Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on the Sunday shows and in testimony to Congress following the consummation of what I believe will be a nuclear weapon-ensuring deal for not only the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad in Iran, but their Sunni counterparts, it should have been clear to all what a charade it was.

Moniz — an MIT physicist turned Obama administration shill — was there to provide the imprimatur of unimpeachable Science™ to the transparently deceptive deal. And who can fight with science, especially of the kind that is already settled?

In this light, I am reminded of a quote from an expert in financial markets and economic history, Jim Grant, he of the legendary Wall Street newsletter Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

During an address delivered on June 2, 2015 to the Manhattan Institute in connection with his winning of the Hayek Prize, Grant stated:

In the 1960s, John Cowperthwaite, British governor of Hong Kong, refused to allow the collection of economic statistics lest the bureaucrats misappropriate that information in the service of governmental macroeconomic manipulation (the very word “statistics” derives from “the state”).

Such an act would be heresy today in a world in which the state, governing according to scientific principles, is the church for our progressive elites.

Cowperthwaite knew that politicians would conflate science and public policy to justify their agendas and grow their power.

For it is science that legitimates the Iran deal.

It is science that legitimates the disruption of human activity, and with it trillions of dollars in wealth through global climate regulation.

Indeed, it is science that legitimates any number of government intrusions into our daily lives.

Science ought to be celebrated. But politicians can manipulate it towards destructive ends.

Winston Churchill saw this early on when he expressed fears about the power of mass weaponry. Of course it is not the weapons that are the problem in and of themselves, but the prospect of evil people obtaining them and using them towards genocidal ends that ought to keep us awake at night.

Today America is aiding, abetting and enabling just these types of people.

In fact, as an aside, Ernest Moniz, again our Secretary of Energy, when asked about government findings on another mass weapon, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) during Congressional testimony — the use of which Iran has endorsed and for which we have yet to harden our grid — effectively pleaded ignorance.

Ernest Moniz is a fitting living embodiment of the fusion of science and state.

07/20/15

Wesley Clark Calls for Internment Camps for “Radicalized” Americans

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

This is a horrific idea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hunting down and dispatching terrorists and bad guys on our turf. But internment camps? Let’s just stop for a minute and wonder why Wesley Clark has done an about face so suddenly. Anything they can use in the name of national defense like internment camps can also be used against everyday Americans at their discretion. The internment camps in WWII were shameful and wrong. The same would be true here. If you have to deport people or prosecute them, that is one thing. But to round up everyone you deem ‘radicalized’ is quite another. What does that even mean to Clark? Color me highly suspicious of this and shocked that it is being floated out there.

From The Intercept:

Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark on Friday called for World War II-style internment camps to be revived for “disloyal Americans.” In an interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts in the wake of the mass shooting in Chatanooga, Tennessee, Clark said that during World War II, “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.”

He called for a revival of internment camps to help combat Muslim extremism, saying, “If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”

The comments were shockingly out of character for Clark, who after serving as supreme allied commander of NATO made a name for himself in progressive political circles. In 2004, his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was highly critical of the Bush administration’s excessive response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Since then, he has been a critic of policies that violate the Geneva Convention, saying in 2006 that policies such as torture violate “the very values that [we] espouse.”

In a memoir written the following year, he also famously alleged that the White House under Bush had developed a massively imperialistic plan for the Middle East, which would see the administration attempt to “take out seven countries in five years,” beginning with the invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this year I spoke with Clark at the annual Lewis and Clark University Symposium on International Affairs in Portland, Oregon. The subject of our discussion was how to deal with the potential threat of foreign fighters returning from armed conflicts abroad. At the time, Clark spoke out strongly against “the politics of fear” and eroding democratic institutions and norms, while reiterating his criticism of the excesses committed by Bush-era neoconservatives under the banner of fighting terrorism.

But on Friday, he was advocating the revival of a policy widely considered to be among the most shameful chapters in American history: World War II domestic internment camps. Aside from the inherent problems in criminalizing people for their beliefs, Clark’s proposal (which his MSNBC interlocutor did not challenge him on) also appears to be based on the concept of targeting people for government scrutiny who are not even “radicalized,” but who the government decides may be subject to radicalization in the future. That radicalization itself is a highly amorphous and politically malleable concept only makes this proposal more troubling.

“We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized. We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning,” Clark said. “I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists.” And he added that “not only the United States but our allied nations like Britain, Germany and France are going to have to look at their domestic law procedures.”

Despite an outcry about his comments on social media, Clark has not responded publicly. As of Monday morning, his latest tweet was from Friday, encouraging his followers to watch his interview.

Wesley Clark is a political hack. His suggestion here should chill every American right to the bone. He’s not just suggesting it for America either… he’s suggesting it be done globally. Listen to the video closely. He’s suggesting people who are likely to be radicalized should be imprisoned. This is unconstitutional and barbaric. He’s suggesting here that we suspend the Constitution (even more than they already have) and build and populate gulags. I can’t believe what I’m hearing and seeing. Things are hurtling out of control in America. Americans better stand up and stop this or we are going to see a fascist tyranny take hold here and fast. Internment camps? What scares me the most is that people on both sides of the political sphere are cheering this on. Unfreaking believable.

Internment Camps

07/4/15

Vapid Musings At Vox And Why The American Revolution Was NOT A Mistake

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

George Washington

Over the years I have seen many idiotic pieces of what pass for journalistic regurgitation and moronic self-indulgence… the piece over at Vox entitled: 3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake, by Dylan Matthews, is in a class all by its lonesome. It begs for a brutal fisking and on this Independence Day in 2015, far from the revolutionary battlefield (but perhaps getting closer by the day and hour), I will oblige this vapid moonbat in honor of our Independence. Hard won for us all, benefiting even the likes of this troll.

Now, granted… this wannabe hipster is no brain trust. In fact, he looks stoned and addled:

Dylan Matthews

Dylan Matthews of Vox

Dylan Matthews has been writing since the age of 14 in 2004. He went to Harvard as well. Then he went on to write for the Washington Post. He also writes for Salon and The New Republic. In other words, he’s a radical Leftist and a Marxist. Duh. Dylan Matthews was an identified member of JournoList – an email group of approximately 400 “Progressive” and socialist journalists, academics and “new media” activists. The group was shut down in 2010 after being exposed from within. Yep, no bias there. Right.

Our young Marxist starts off his diatribe with a picture of George Washington, where he wittily captions it: George Washington crosses the Delaware, makes the world a worse place in the process. Only if you detest freedom and living in the greatest nation to ever grace the planet, which of course he does.

After besmirching our first and greatest president and someone that Matthews will NEVER be, a man of courage and character, he goes on to opine that on this July 4th, he is flying to the UK. The symbolism of it all is not lost on this raving moonbat. Matthews then proclaims that “American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake” (never mind the years from 1776 to 1783 when Independence was actually attained) and that we should be grieving that we left the Brits instead of staying indentured to the British Empire. Does this guy even read history? Evidently not, because he knows nothing of the American Revolution or the Independence our forebears fought, bled and died for, all so we could be free. Free to practice our religion as we see fit… free to speak out without fear of persecution… free from crushing taxes and free to craft our own laws and conduct business as a free nation would. The pseudo-intellectuality of this cretin is nauseating.

His first premise is that abolition would have come faster without Independence:

Abolition in most of the British Empire occurred in 1834, following the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act. That left out India, but slavery was banned there too in 1843. In England itself, slavery was illegal at least going back to 1772. That’s decades earlier than the United States.

This alone is enough to make the case against the revolution. Decades less slavery is a massive humanitarian gain that almost certainly dominates whatever gains came to the colonists from independence.

There’s a gaping fallacy in the above and unless Matthews is just stone stupid (which could well be the case), it is dishonest. In 1772, the US colonies were still under British rule. He claims that slavery was illegal for the Brits dating back to that year, but it didn’t end slavery here in the US. That was under the control of the British. And the infamous British slave trade was not ended until 1807. It’s also a fact that in the West Indies, where slaves were freed in 1834, they were forced to continue working for their former masters for four to six years without compensation after they were set ‘free.’ Chattel slavery was replaced by serfdom. When they were freed, they did not own the houses they lived in, their livestock or their farms. They had to start paying rent. They were still forced to work for the very masters who set them free and follow their orders or starve. So, claiming that slavery was eradicated by the Brits long before the US did is somewhat specious. Saying that slavery ended at that time was akin to saying what ‘is’ is. Very little changed in the beginning.

Contrary to his gender-studies/racism-fusion rant, the revolution did not give more power to the “white male minority” as its primary motive. He purports that from the very beginning the whole country was about repression. We were fleeing repression. The people who settled this country, for the most part, came here to escape religious and political persecution in England and Europe. His argument has no foundation and is entirely speculative, written as though to answer an academic “how does the American Revolution make you feel?” question. Do you honestly believe that women, Indians and blacks would have been any better off under British rule in the colonies? Not a chance. The British didn’t care about women’s rights or the plight of the Indians or the civil rights of African Americans. They were for power for the King, the nobility and whatever benefited the monarchy. Their “rights” were granted at the whim of the monarch, not from God nor even seen as natural human rights. The British nobility reveled in servants and to this day they still do… they’re just paid a wage now and appear to be free. His arguments on emancipation are even more ridiculous.

As for Matthews claiming that the majority of African Americans fought for the Crown, once again, history is a bitch. Prior to the revolution, many free African Americans supported the anti-British cause, most famously Crispus Attucks, believed to be the first person killed at the Boston Massacre. At the time of the American Revolution, some blacks had already been enlisted as Minutemen. Both free and enslaved Africans had served in local militias, especially in the North, defending their villages against attacks by Native Americans. In March of 1775, the Continental Congress assigned units of the Massachusetts militia as Minutemen. They were under orders to become activated if the British troops in Boston took the offensive.

In April of 1775, at Lexington and Concord, blacks responded to the call and fought with Patriot forces. The Battle of Bunker Hill also had African-American soldiers fighting along with white Patriots. Many African Americans, both enslaved and free, wanted to join with the Patriots. They believed that they would either achieve freedom or expand their civil rights. In addition to the role of soldier, blacks also served as guides, messengers and spies.

American states had to meet quotas of troops for the new Continental Army and New England regiments recruited black slaves by promising freedom to those who served in the Continental Army. During the course of the war, about one fifth of the northern army was black. At the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment, estimated the American army to be about one quarter black.

You cannot secure freedom for a minority of any kind if there is no freedom to be had for anyone. The patriots of the American Revolution knew this and fought to the death for it.

However, in the spirit of identifying actual causes of oppression, since that seems to be his “hot button” issue, let’s remember that, indeed, there was a faction in this country that labored long and hard to preserve the subservience of the blacks long after their official emancipation. That faction was the Democrat party and its adjuncts, such as the KKK. The Democrats hated that the Republican party — expressly founded to secure the rights and equality of blacks — was beginning to gain traction, to the point that they mounted a massive subterfuge to blame the plight of blacks on the very people who had worked to free them, culminating in the infamous words of Lyndon B. Johnson: “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” So, Dylan, if you wonder why the Black Man is still struggling in America, check your Dem privilege, you simpering fop.

The Revolutionary War was fought over the right to bear arms and against taxes and tariffs, plus a long list of grievances. Please see below – the Declaration of Independence gives lie to his ill-informed assertions:

…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Next, Matthews claims that independence was bad for Native Americans:

Starting with the Proclamation of 1763, the British colonial government placed firm limits on westward settlement in the United States. It wasn’t motivated by an altruistic desire to keep American Indians from being subjugated or anything; it just wanted to avoid border conflicts.

But all the same, the policy enraged American settlers, who were appalled that the British would seem to side with Indians over white men. “The British government remained willing to conceive of Native Americans as subjects of the crown, similar to colonists,” Ethan Schmidt writes in Native Americans in the American Revolution. “American colonists … refused to see Indians as fellow subjects. Instead, they viewed them as obstacles in the way of their dreams of land ownership and trading wealth.” This view is reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which attacks King George III for backing “merciless Indian Savages.”

Nice skewed version of history you’ve got there son. I know you’ll be shocked, but he gets it wrong yet again. The Proclamation of 1763 does not mean what he is claiming it does. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7th, 1763, by King George III, following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The Royal Proclamation continues to be of legal importance to First Nations in Canada and is significant for the variation of indigenous status in the United States. It eventually ensured that British culture and laws were applied in Upper Canada after 1791, which was done to attract British settlers to the province. Last time I looked, we were not Canada. This was the Brits’ way of trying to manage North America and had nothing to do with Native Americans. The colonists objected to being slaughtered by the Indians, I’m sure. Racism did exist, but it would have been no less under British rule, I assure you. Border conflicts and battles would still have been the norm until the Brits had had enough and quelled them.

And lastly, Matthews claims America would have a better system of government if we’d stuck with Britain.

I’ve heard this argument many times… that any government is better than our Constitutional Republic – especially the parliamentary system. That’s an ill conceived joke. I’m sure whatever history that Matthews was taught was biased and left huge holes in reality and how things truly unfolded here in the States. Matthews is a big government guy – an outspoken Progressive. The people don’t know what is best for them and never have according to him – you know, as in a dictatorship. They would be far better off, in his warped view, if our elite betters simply decided everything for us. This is how we have gotten to where we are today, via Obama. In fact, Matthews during his brief adult life, at the tender age of 25, has never known anything else than an Obama Administration. He’s in for quite a culture shock when a true conservative, such as Ted Cruz, is elected.

RedState points out that Ben Domenech, in The Transom, points out the best critique of this nonsense comes from Mark Twain, who did not graduate from Harvard and would rip Matthews to shreds:

“For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is “the country?” Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.”

“In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country — hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

When drafting the Constitution, the founders ensured that the executive, judicial and legislative branches had co-equal power, with checks and balances to ensure that neither branch produced a dictatorship. I’m sure that is much to Matthews’ dismay. I wonder in Matthews’ lack of study, if he ever considered the history of 20th-century parliamentary systems, especially one in particular — the Weimar Republic. Matthews supports a parliamentary system in opposition to our Republic, claiming it is a bulwark against a dictatorship. Seriously? And this is because he likes unchecked big government power. You can’t make this stuff up:

In the US, activists wanting to put a price on carbon emissions spent years trying to put together a coalition to make it happen, mobilizing sympathetic businesses and philanthropists and attempting to make bipartisan coalition — and they still failed to pass cap and trade, after millions of dollars and man hours. In the UK, the Conservative government decided it wanted a carbon tax. So there was a carbon tax. Just like that. Passing big, necessary legislation — in this case, legislation that’s literally necessary to save the planet — is a whole lot easier with parliaments than presidential systems.

Yeah, screw that whole ‘freedom’ thing. Big government gets it done faster and eliminates the riffraff factor. This guy is the very definition of a useful idiot.

Krystal Heath had this to say about the greatness of America over at Louder with Crowder – 15 reasons why the American Revolution was the best thing that ever happened to the world:

1. It established a haven for religious freedom. Oppressed men, women, and children from all around the globe flocked to our shores to worship the god they pleased in the manner they desired to… and no one was going to stop them, kill them, or force them to convert.

2. It created a democratic republic. For the first time in modern history, the average citizen had a voice in his own government. And it’s worked out pretty well for us.

3. It recognized that mankind is endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator. Government doesn’t give us our rights, our very existence does. Yes, America, we were the ones who put that in writing and created a standard for human rights unparalleled by any other governmental system.

4. It ended tyranny. No more would a people be governed by a single man, woman, or family. Three separate yet equal branches of government were established to ensure justice and domestic tranquility.

5. It brought with it a Bill of Rights. America today is the most free nation on earth because we have the right to say what we will, assemble where we will, defend ourselves as we will, and so on – these liberties are often threatened, yet they remain our own.

6. It gave us some of the greatest governing charters in the world. From the Mayflower Compact to the Declaration of Independence, the United States from its inception created a blueprint which other nations have aspired to duplicate.

7. It gave mankind a haven for pursuing happiness. Life in America is good. The US has more self-made millionaires and billionaires proportionally than anywhere else in the world. And by global standards, America’s middle class is really, really rich. Our standard of living is second to none. Period.

8. It created a land of opportunity. Success or failure in America is dependent on an individual’s own work ethic. We rise and fall on our own. If you can dream it, you can do it.

9. It birthed a land of virtue and ideals. Like it or not, the United States was founded on Biblical principles. Those principles embedded in our framework a standard of decency and decorum rarely found elsewhere.

10. It brought unparalleled innovation and technology to the world. Who built the first automobile? Who invented the airplane? Who put a man on the moon? Who created your iPhone? ‘Merica.

11. It gave the world the best in entertainment. Maybe Pride and Prejudice and British soap operas are your thing. But in case you haven’t noticed, all the best shows are Made in the USA.

12. It brought baseball and football to mankind. Our basketball and hockey teams are pretty epic, too.

13. It set the standard for modern, civilized societies. Travel the world. You’ll find America has the best cities, the best stores, and the greatest communities on the globe.

14. It made cultural diversity a reality. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Unlike any other country on the planet, the USA is a nation of immigrants. People from all backgrounds and faiths live here together, united.

15. It’s about freedom. America is synonymous with liberty. And without the Revolution, that wouldn’t have been possible.

Britain kept their monarchy, how’s that working for them? They have one of the world’s highest violent crime rates. They’re overrun with Islamists and terrorists. Their violent crime has gotten so bad, in spite of their having banned guns decades ago, now they are looking at banning knives. And tell me how their people are anything but indentured servants with the failed economy they have? How does having a ruling family, who is answerable to just about no one, trump a Constitutional Republic? Even if you’ve only watched “The Patriot” with Mel Gibson, you are light years more enlightened than this moron. This liberal writer at Vox is an over-educated, biased asshat, in addition to being stupid and ignorant. If he likes Britain so much, why, by all means, go… please. I’ll take up a collection to buy you a ticket. Just don’t come back.

06/24/15

A Russian Link to the Charleston Massacre?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), treated by the media as an objective source of information on right-wing “hate” groups, sent an email message to its supporters on Monday declaring evidence that the Charleston church shooter was “connected to [a] worldwide white supremacist movement.” This seemed like a big discovery. After all, the shooter, Dylann Roof, had declared in his alleged manifesto, that “We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the Internet,” when it came to racist support groups for his planned massacre of black people. The drug-abusing 21-year-old was complaining about a lack of organized support for his views.

Had the SPLC dug up some new evidence? Indeed, where was the evidence that Roof was “connected” to a global plot? SPLC President Richard Cohen informed his supporters in this email begging for financial support that “through his symbols and writings, suspect Dylann Storm Roof has expressed sentiments that are uniting white supremacists across the world—from the United States to Europe to Australia.” His symbols and writings made him part of an international plot? Is this the best the SPLC can do?

Welcome to the world of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the media’s designated “experts” on right-wing extremism. The SPLC “tracks hate groups” is the usual claim in the media. In fact, it helped inspire an actual terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the conservative Christian Family Research Council (FRC), after a gay militant discovered the location of the FRC on an SPLC “hate map.” A security guard was wounded before he succeeded in taking down the attacker.

“Thank you [for] supporting this vital fight against hate and extremism,” said Cohen in the fundraising letter exploiting the Roof case. They are desperate to add to their $245.3 million financial endowment.

At the top of the email message was a “DONATE” button. Readers were also told they could become a financial “partner” through a planned gift, or a “friend of the Center” through monthly giving.

On the same day that Cohen inflated the facts in the Roof case in a crass appeal for money, he and his associate, Morris Dees, had written an op-ed for The New York Times including similar exaggerations. The piece, headlined, “White Supremacists Without Borders,” insisted that the “themes” adopted by the killer were “signs of the growing globalization of white nationalism.” The term “globalization” can apply to just about anything on the Internet, since that technology is international in scope. That was good enough for those who procure and place op-eds at The New York Times.

“When we think of the Islamist terrorism of groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, we recognize their international dimension,” said Dees and Cohen. “When it comes to far-right domestic terrorism, we don’t.” Perhaps that is because the “evidence” of Roof’s international connections is thin, if not non-existent. Indeed, as noted, Roof complains in the manifesto about the absence of even local grassroots support for his cause in the supposedly racist enclave of South Carolina.

The only evidence of an international connection, not mentioned by Cohen or Dees, is that several in the media have determined through a simple search on the Internet that Roof’s website was hosted by a Russian server, apparently located in Moscow. At a time of news about Russian and Chinese hackers getting access to federal and other websites in the U.S., this seems mighty interesting and newsworthy. Does this mean that Russian interests had advance knowledge of Roof’s manifesto and murder plans? This seems worthy of follow-up, but is not mentioned by the SPLC in its Times op-ed.

The op-ed ignores the real hard evidence of the international connections of the white supremacist movement in the form of former KKK leader David Duke once traveling to Russia and meeting with Alexander Dugin, a one-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party. We reported on this connection back in March of last year. Duke called Dugin “one of the leading intellectuals of Russia’s patriotic movement.” The SPLC is aware of Dugin, having published an article noting that he “has close ties to the Kremlin” and “supports a Eurasian empire made up of Russia and former Soviet republics such as the Ukraine and set against ‘North Atlantic interests.’” But it calls him a “fascist,” rather than a staunch ally of Putin and advocate of Russian imperialism.

The SPLC did report previously on what it termed a “Russian White Nationalist Conference” held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in March of this year, with various foreign groups and individuals in attendance. Strangely, however, there is no evidence that the SPLC seriously investigated a possible Russian connection to any of this in the Dylann Roof case. Instead, it claims a foreign connection through images and themes he invoked, a very weak case to present to the Times’ readers.

Euromaidan Press, a voice for Ukraine’s anti-Russian activists, reported extensively on the St. Petersburg conference, even publishing the names of those attending the event. An article noted “…the prevalence of statements in support of Russia and Putin in particular as the true conservatives that can save the world,” citing “quotes from now infamous speeches of Putin’s in which he talks of the emergence of nationalism and conservatism as a natural expression of Russian patriotism.”

As we have argued in the past, however, Putin’s alleged conservatism is a grand deception, designed to lure conservatives around the world into supporting Russian aggression. Putin has never given up his old KGB and Soviet ways.

In their op-ed, Cohen and Dees said, “Europe has also seen the rise of a powerful, far-right political movement that rejects multiculturalism. The anti-Semitic Jobbik Party in Hungary and the neo-fascist Golden Dawn in Greece are prime examples. In Germany, there has been a series of murders by neo-Nazis. Britain, too, is experiencing an upswing of nationalist, anti-immigrant politics.”

Left unsaid in the case of Greece is that the new left-wing ruling party, Syriza, is pro-Russia and anti-Western, and that Vladimir Putin has promised financial assistance if the European Union balks at another economic bailout.

It turns out that the SPLC has been conned by the Russians in the past. SPLC staffer Mark Potok, described by the group as a “leading expert” on extremism, actually appeared as a guest on Putin’s TV channel, Russia Today. Embarrassed over this fact, the group later published a “Full disclosure” disclaimer, noting that Potok had appeared on an edition of Russia Today’s “CrossTalk” program to discuss the rise of militias in the U.S. The SPLC then belatedly began to take note of the channel’s anti-American propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

Potok, their expert, apparently didn’t understand—or didn’t care—that Russia Today TV was actually linked to Russia and the Russian government. His expertise is clearly lacking about Russian influence operations.

We see similar blindness regarding other threats.

“We know Islamic terrorists are thinking globally, and we confront that threat,” Dees and Cohen declare in their Times op-ed. “We’ve been too slow to realize that white supremacists are doing the same.” The SPLC has been way too slow to investigate the Russian connection to the white supremacists it claims to be so concerned about. There is certainly no evidence of what they have uncovered in that Times op-ed.

As far as Islamic terrorists are concerned, the SPLC turns things around by targeting the critics of radical Islam. A simple search of the group’s website brings forth several stories about the dangers allegedly posed by “Islamophobes,” not the terrorists themselves. Consider the article that begins, “In the weeks following the terrorist attacks in France, major players in the American anti-Muslim movement have unleashed a tirade of bigotry and renewed their energies in attacking the federal government. But not to be left out, prominent anti-immigrant figures and politicians have also joined the show.”

This is typical of how the SPLC operates. The problem is not radical Islam trying to kill Americans or others. Rather, the problem is the people who focus on the threat and want the federal government to protect the American people from the threat. Hence, Pamela Geller, later targeted in a terrorist attack on American soil, was an “Islamophobe,” according to the SPLC and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The term is usually applied to anyone who suggests taking the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously and takes action against it.

By attempting to orchestrate the coverage of terrorism in such a way as to ignore the threat posed by the terrorists themselves, the SPLC employs the tactic of “partisan tolerance,” meaning that the conservatives who want to protect America and its allies from Islamic terrorists or Russian aggression become the problem. This is why Dylann Roof must be transformed by the SPLC from a drug-abusing loner into a global right-wing terrorist. It is political exploitation of a national tragedy that confuses and misleads the nation.

It’s shocking that the major media continue to take the SPLC seriously. Liberal media bias helps explain, but not justify, this curious state of affairs. Another factor has to be laziness on the part of reporters, who don’t want to take the time to do their own research or work. It’s easier to cite the “experts,” even if they are frauds and con men.