06/7/15

“Marquette Warrior” Professor Exposes Campus PC

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Professor John McAdams

Free speech and academic freedom are under assault at Marquette University. The administration at this Catholic University is trying to fire the “Marquette Warrior” blogger, Professor John McAdams, for exposing various embarrassments on campus, such as a mural glamorizing the cop-killer Assata Shakur, and how an instructor tried to ban “homophobic” comments. In response to his blog post on the mural, the Marquette administration had it painted over. In response to his blog post on a ban on “homophobic” comments in one class, the administration suspended and banned McAdams from campus, and is now trying to fire him.

03/12/15

Catholic Church Captured by “Progressive Forces”

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Armando Valladares, Castro’s political prisoner for 22 years, said his Catholic faith was strengthened behind bars by hearing young Catholics shouting “Viva Cristo Rey,” for “Long Live Christ the King,” and “down with communism!” as they faced the firing squad. It has been his hope that Cuba would one day be free of communism. But he is far less hopeful now that Pope Francis has taken measures that he says “objectively favor the political and ecclesiastical left in Latin America” and could undermine the “Christian future of the Americas.”

Meanwhile, Marxist writer Richard Greeman has written an extraordinary article, “Catholicism: The New Communism?,” arguing that “progressive forces” have “captured” the Vatican, and that Francis is conducting a “purge” of traditional elements, such as those loyal to anti-communist Pope John Paul II.

Valladares, author of Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro’s Gulag, was the United States Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission under the Reagan and Bush administrations. He writes in a recent column that Francis was the “most eminent architect and mediator” of the Obama administration deal with Cuba that will “now provide the repressive apparatus of the Cuban regime with rivers of money and favorable publicity.”

He goes on, “We are witnessing one of the greatest examples of media sleights-of-hand in history: From a well-deserved image of aggressor, a regime which for decades spearheaded bloody revolutions in Latin America and Africa and continues to spread its tentacles in the three Americas, has been craftily made to look like a victimized underdog.”

He says the responsibility lies with the unexpected rise of a Francis-Obama “axis” in foreign affairs that benefits Marxist governments throughout Latin America.

Valladares, who received the Citizen’s Presidential Medal from President Ronald Reagan, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in communist Cuba in 1960 for being philosophically and religiously opposed to communism. He was tortured and kept in isolation for refusing to be “re-educated.” He was released after 22 years in prison, in 1982, when international pressure was brought to bear on the regime.

Valladares says it’s not just the Cuba betrayal that concerns him. He notes that Francis overturned the suspension of Nicaraguan priest Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a former communist Sandinista foreign minister and a leading pro-Castro figure in liberation theology.

Despite his credentials as a political prisoner turned human rights activist and powerful voice for freedom, his column on the Obama-Francis “axis” has received very little attention. An associate says it seems “too politically incorrect,” an apparent reference to the fact that Francis is a global media star for identifying with the poor, and that liberals and conservatives alike are reluctant to criticize him.

Valladares, however, says the pope has gone far beyond taking up the cause of poor people. His column notes that Francis personally attended something called the World Meeting of Popular Movements last October in Rome. “It gathered 100 revolutionary world leaders, including well-known Latin American professional agitators,” Valladares points out. “The meeting turned out to be a kind of marketing ‘beatification’ of these Marxist-inspired revolutionary figures.”

One of the participants in the Vatican event was Evo Morales, the Marxist President of Bolivia who dedicated his election victory last year to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and the late Venezuelan Marxist ruler, Hugo Chávez.

The Vatican’s own description of the meeting referred to changing “an economy of exclusion” and “an idolatrous system of money.” The statement went on, “Together we want to discuss the structural causes of so much inequality (inequidad) which robs us of work (labor), housing (domus) and land (terra), which generates violence and destroys nature. We also want to face the challenge Francis himself sets puts [sic] to us with courage and intelligence: to seek radical proposals to resolve the problems of the poor.”

Valladares isn’t the only one to notice the “radical” or leftward drift of the papacy. Greeman’s article wondering if Catholicism is the “new communism” appears in New Politics, a socialist magazine “committed to the advancement of the peace and anti-intervention movements” and which “stands in opposition to all forms of imperialism…”

New Politics has strong links to the Democratic Socialists of America, a group that backed Barack Obama’s political career from the start. Its “sponsors” include Noam Chomsky, Frances Fox Piven, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West and the late communist historian Howard Zinn.

Greeman notes that the world’s Catholic Bishops have “explicitly pointed to capitalism as the basic cause of impending global catastrophe,” in the form of climate change, and have “called for a new economic order.” He was referring to a group of Catholic Bishops who met at the U.N. climate talks last December and blamed “the dominant global economic system, which is a human creation,” for global warming. They argued for “a new financial and economic order” and the phasing out of the use of fossil fuels.

Greeman says the Bishops’ attack on capitalism was generally ignored, even on the left, and he understands why. There have been so many “rapid changes” coming out of Rome “since the ascension to the Throne of Saint Peter” by Pope Francis that it is hard to keep up with them, he says.

Francis will issue a Vatican document, known as an encyclical, on climate change in June or July.

Greeman writes that these “radically anti-capitalist Catholic positions” have got him wondering whether Catholicism is “the new Communism,” Rome “the new Moscow,” and the church “the new Comintern.” The term “Comintern” refers to the Communist International, an association of national communist parties started by Lenin.

Growing up as a “red diaper baby” during the Cold War, Greeman writes, Catholicism was “synonymous with militant anti-Communism.” But changes that started coming years ago in the church have been accelerating under Francis, he writes. He attributes some of this “change” to Francis, who is from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a Jesuit, which is a “progressive” religious order whose “solid organization and discipline” and “attempts to take over the Church” go back centuries.

Greeman refers to the Catholic or “universal” Church as “the only actually existing organized world-party,” whose “vast wealth and influence are now in Francis’ hands.” He writes about “the capture” of the church by “progressive forces,” a development which opens up “huge possibilities for human liberation and perhaps a chance for the planet to avoid climate catastrophe.” He believes Francis “and his allies” are now conducting a “purge of the apparatus” in the Vatican.

Writing in Links, an international socialist journal, Canadian activist Judith Marshall discusses meeting the pope during the World Meeting of Popular Movements and witnessing his presentation to the group. “Pope Francis’ forthright statements on the social ministry of the church hearken back to the 1960s and 1970s when liberation theology was such a dynamic force in promoting struggles for social justice, particularly in Latin America,” she wrote. “The symbolism of a World Meeting of Popular Movements which brought a multitude of the poor right into [the] heart of the Vatican has not been lost on those looking for a resurgence of liberation theology.”

Liberation theology was manufactured by the old KGB to dupe Christians into supporting Marxism.

She also insisted that Francis “has arguably made the Papacy the most radical and consistent voice in pointing to the profanity of global inequality and exclusion. He has also repeatedly named the inordinate power of multinational corporations and finance capital as key factors in reproducing global poverty and destruction of the planet.”

She says Francis met with several Marxist activists from Latin America and even met privately with President Morales of Bolivia who “stressed how Mother Earth had become ill from capitalism,” and that “under the prevailing global economy, the planet would actually do better without humans—but humans need the planet.”

In a previous meeting Morales told the pope, “For me, you are brother Francis.” The pope responded, “As it should be, as it should be.”

01/24/15

Anti-Christian Bias at Fox News?

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

The pressure to conform to the left-wing homosexual agenda has scored a direct hit on the Fox News Channel. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth discusses the scandal surrounding Bret Baier’s forced withdrawal from a Catholic conference. Jerry Kenney and Cliff Kincaid join Peter LaBarbera to discuss whether Bret Baier’s rights to free speech and religious expression were violated by his corporate bosses. Can a legal case be brought against Fox News?

01/21/15

Fox News “Apologizes” to Radical Islam

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The disease known as political correctness has infected Fox News. First, anchor Bret Baier withdrew from a Catholic conference under pressure from his management and the homosexual lobby. Now, Fox News has bowed to pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood lobby, issuing an embarrassing “correction” that was not warranted for having reported factually on the existence of Muslim-dominated “no-go zones” in Europe.

These zones, which are better understood as Muslim-dominated enclaves or ghettos, were the scene of much-publicized violent riots in France in 2005.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) decided to target Fox News after several programs featured commentators who noted the existence of no-go Muslim-dominated areas where Islamic terror cells take root and find recruits.

In response to CAIR’s criticism, Fox News has apologized, even saying the coverage of the no-go zones was offensive. It is as if the forces of the global Jihad have acquired a veto over what appears on the air on the channel.

While CAIR’s pressure was certainly a factor in the capitulation to the Muslim Brotherhood lobby, another factor could well have been the influence of the Saudi billionaire, Alwaleed bin Talal, who controls an influential number of voting shares in the Fox News parent company. We noted that Alwaleed had prompted the Fox News Channel to dramatically alter its coverage of the Muslim riots in France after he admitted calling the channel to complain.

At that time, Fox News and other media outlets had noted that “Muslim riots” had erupted in the mostly Muslim suburbs of Paris and other French cities. These are some of the no-go zones. Acting offended, Alwaleed said he had called Rupert Murdoch to complain and that Fox News anchors changed the term “Muslim riots” to “civil riots.”

In the latest case, CAIR called on Fox News to stop using “Islamophobic commentators,” a smear term for critics of radical Islam, and focused on terrorism expert Steven Emerson’s description of Birmingham, England as “totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” Emerson admitted he was wrong and had misquoted his sources.

Although Emerson exaggerated the problem, the fact is that Muslim groups and even gangs are known to be a problem in the city and a threat to some non-Muslims. In 2008, for example, two evangelists said they were threatened with arrest and warned by a police officer in Birmingham that they should not hand out Christian literature in a certain area of the city because they could get “beaten up” by mobs and charged with a hate crime.

At the time, a senior Church of England bishop, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, had warned about “already separate communities” in Britain turning into no-go areas. During a 2009 visit to the United States, he was reported to have said that “Christians have been prevented from advertising church events in these parts of town and even police have been reluctant to enter these communities.”

So while Emerson made a mistake, his basic point about Muslim intimidation of outsiders remains valid.

Evidence of the problem has been available for years. In Belgium, for example, the district of Molenbeek was investigated in an undercover capacity by Moroccan-Belgian journalist Hind Fraihi, who wrote a 2006 book, Undercover in Klein-Marokko (Undercover in Little Morocco). She found the area to be an essentially ungovernable hotbed of extremism, anti-Semitism, and a breeding ground for jihad. The book “shocked” Belgium, one television news reporter noted. “Many police officers are afraid that the state no longer wields authority here, at least not the sole authority,” the reporter said. “They know that Islamists view Molenbeek as subject only to Muslim law.”

This is the same general area where Muslim riots are reported to have just taken place, following the anti-terror raid by police that left two terror suspects dead. The suspected leader of the terror cell, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is described as a 27-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin who once lived in Molenbeek.

The term “no-go zone” is certainly politically incorrect. For that reason, other more obscure terms have been put forward to refer to the Muslim-dominated areas. For example, the term “Territories of Identities in France” has emerged as one of the descriptions. One academic analyst traced their emergence in France to a French Socialist Party policy in 1981 which allowed foreigners to create their own “voluntary associations,” based on a supposed “right to difference.”

Another more popular term is “exclusion areas.” Whatever they may be called, there can be no doubt they exist. And that was the main point of the Fox News coverage. There was nothing to correct except for Emerson’s inaccuracy about Birmingham. And he had already apologized for that.

Yet, anchor Julie Banderas said in her on-air correction and apology that the channel was sorry for being offensive.

Banderas said the channel had “made some regrettable errors on air, regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.” She explained, “Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren’t allowed in, and police supposedly won’t go.”

But she went on to distort what the channel had actually put on the air. She said, “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country, and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion. There ARE certainly areas of high crime in Europe, as there are in the United States and other countries, where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors, and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.”

Of course, nobody claimed on the air that these enclaves are “formal” or “specific” areas in the sense that the national government has decided to recognize or categorize them as such. In addition, they don’t “exclude individuals based solely on their religion” in a government-recognized legal sense. Rather, these areas take the form of segregated neighborhoods or enclaves. That was the point made by several commentators.

The dramatic correction from Fox News is proof that the Muslim Brotherhood lobby, of which CAIR is a part, has demonstrated clout at the channel, perhaps through figures such as the Saudi billionaire Alwaleed, who also happens to be a financial contributor to CAIR.

There’s no reason for the channel to pander to radical Islam in this dramatic fashion. Clearly, the dramatic Fox News correction of its coverage of the no-go zones was overblown and unnecessary, since Emerson had already admitted his mistake. As a result of the Fox News “correction,” many media outlets are now saying that the concept of no-go zones in Europe for non-Muslims has been thoroughly “discredited.”

What is desperately needed is more, not less, coverage of the Islamization of Europe. Fox should have let Emerson’s correction speak for itself and moved on.

Several observers point to the 1980 book, Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States, published by the Saudi-funded Islamic Council of Europe, as helping to develop this deliberate strategy of establishing Islamic enclaves in European countries that are marked by religious customs and rules. This is shariah—the supremacy of Islamic law.

Political figures can keep the debate going, even if the media now shy away from it. Bucking the tide of appeasement, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal framed the issue in specific and accurate terms in a January 15 speech in London, saying, “It is startling to think that any country would allow, even unofficially, for a so called ‘no-go zone.’ The idea that a free country would allow for specific areas of its country to operate in an autonomous way that is not free and is in direct opposition to its laws is hard to fathom.”

In a column, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney praised Governor Jindal, saying that he said what has been “the unsayable about Islam’s supremacist ideology known as shariah and the holy war, or jihad, it demands all of its adherents to engage in or support.”

However, it appears that the “unsayable” may now be left unsaid on Fox, a channel many conservatives have come to rely on for information about jihad. It’s “highly unlikely” that Emerson will “ever be booked again” on Fox News, a spokesman for the channel said.

If true, this will be a great victory for CAIR and its collaborators, including what Gaffney calls in a new report “The Global Jihad Movement.” The report identifies a victory strategy, in part by identifying the components of this movement, including CAIR.

For his part, Emerson has been consistently correct about the development of the Islamic extremist networks that now threaten America and the world. His latest film, “Jihad in America: The Grand Deception,” describes how Muslim Brotherhood fronts, such as CAIR, have pursued a strategy described in secret documents as the “Civilization-Jihadist Process” of destroying Western civilization from within.

It is this kind of work that has made Emerson into a target.

As far back as 1994, Emerson had served as the executive producer and reporter for the public television documentary “Jihad in America.” The film included previously unknown videos of the clandestine activities of radical Islamic terrorist groups in the United States. Oliver Revell, former associate deputy director of the FBI, stated that Emerson’s program had discovered details about these terrorist networks that the FBI didn’t have.

Emerson testified before Congress on the subject of “Foreign Terrorists in America” in 1998. It was five years after the first World Trade Center attack and three years before 9/11.

Emerson has been proven correct again and again about the terrorist problem we face.

But to make matters worse, Fox media reporter Howard Kurtz made much of the fact that Emerson was only a “guest” on the January 10 edition of the “Justice with Judge Jeanine” show, and not a paid contributor. It was as if he was also trying to separate Emerson from the channel.

For being right about the threat over the course of decades, Emerson deserves our thanks. We need more journalism of this quality. He deserves better treatment from a channel that has now clearly shown it could use more and not less of his expertise.

01/17/15

Bret Baier’s Forced Withdrawal From Catholic Conference

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Even while our media pay lip service to freedom of expression in France, the pressure to conform to the left-wing homosexual agenda continues in the U.S. and has now scored a direct hit on the Fox News Channel. Fox News personality Bret Baier has been forced to pull out of a Catholic Christian conference because of homosexual pressure.

Once again, for all the world to see, we have a stark example of how the freedom to object to the homosexual agenda is being denied to those in the news business.

Baier has been an outspoken conservative voice at the channel, hosting the blockbuster “13 Hours: The Inside Story,” a Fox News special featuring exclusive interviews with the American security operatives who fought on the ground during the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

The Baier case comes on the heels of the firing of Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran because of a book he wrote for a men’s Bible study group at his Baptist church that included statements in favor of traditional marriage and values.

A practicing Catholic who says his faith has pulled him through some family and personal turmoil, Baier carries the titles of Fox News Chief Political Anchor & Executive Editor and Anchor of “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

LifeSiteNews criticized Baier, saying that by backing out of a speaking engagement at a Catholic conference, he “has shown himself to have a thinner skin than might be guessed from his on-air persona.” But it appears, based on what is known about decision-making at the channel, that corporate pressure was behind the capitulation to the gay lobby.

Fox News Channel is a major contributor to the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), and recruits homosexuals at the group’s events.

While Baier is apparently being muzzled because of the Catholic credentials of the group he was scheduled to speak to, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith has been able to spout pro-homosexual views on the air, such as when he denounced Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day as the “National Day of Intolerance.” The outburst was triggered by a Chick-fil-A executive speaking out against gay marriage. Smith is said to be dating a young Fox News male staffer.

Baier was advertised as a speaker at a Catholic conference sponsored by Legatus, a group promoting Catholic teachings. The conference was to begin with the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, celebrated by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York.

Homosexual activists had demanded that Baier and other speakers withdraw because some Legatus material advocates that homosexuals change their lifestyle. Catholic teaching holds that the practice of homosexuality is a violation of Biblical standards of morality. But some gay militants assert that homosexuals are born that way and cannot change their sexuality under any circumstances.

The “Good as You” militant gay lobby group had attacked Legatus as “a very anti-gay organization of Catholics” because of passages in some of its material opposing the practice of homosexuality and saying that homosexuals can change.

Baier’s talk was supposed to be about his book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love, describing in eloquent terms how his family coped with their son’s heart problems. “Faith was crucial,” he told Legatus in an interview. “I try to paint that picture in the book. I don’t shy away from it.”

Baier’s withdrawal from this conference stands in stark contrast to Fox News’ regular practice, carried out over many years, of providing financial support to the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). Fox News chief Roger Ailes has refused to discuss the ethics of these money transfers to the special interest group.

It is believed that these payments are a form of hush money to keep the gay lobby from complaining too loudly about the conservative orientation of some Fox News programs and personalities.

But that strategy went out the window with the Bret Baier fiasco involving Legatus, which is now making headlines across the country. “Bret Baier Withdraws from Legatus Summit” is one of many headlines resulting from the successful homosexual pressure campaign to force Baier out of the event.

Now the whole world can see that even the powerful Fox News Channel can be intimidated to toe the homosexual line. The thousands of dollars in payments to NLGJA did not keep the gay lobby at bay.

The conference that was supposed to feature Bret Baier also includes Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana. Actor Gary Sinise also withdrew under pressure, saying he didn’t want to look divisive.

Baier was asked in the Legatus interview, “You’re in a high-profile job with a ton of pressure. How does your faith help you?” He replied, “I rely on it heavily. I think it helps ground me. When the world is spinning faster and faster, the occasional close-the-door-and-meditate-in-prayer is helpful for anybody, no matter what your religion is. It’s the vehicle that takes you to that place and calms you down.”

But the pressure from the gay lobby has apparently proven to be too much for this Fox News personality. Or perhaps he was pressured to withdraw by his corporate bosses.

A Fox News spokesperson told LifeSiteNews that Baier pulled out of the Legatus conference “due to the controversy surrounding some editorial stances in the organization’s magazine.” The spokesperson added, “Bret accepted the invitation to speak about his book, his faith, and his son’s congenital heart disease. He was unaware of these articles or the controversy surrounding them.”

It is unclear why the “editorial stances” that are consistent with Catholic teaching should have been a surprise to the Fox News anchor, or why they should be controversial.

Baier was raised a Catholic, attends a Catholic Church in the Washington, D.C. area, and has raised money in the past for Catholic schools. He must surely be familiar with Catholic teachings on homosexuality and the role of Catholic groups like Legatus in promoting the official church position.

The only possible explanation is that the homosexual lobby is so powerful that even the mighty Fox News cannot stand up to the pressure it can generate.

The motto of Legatus is, “To study, live, and spread the Catholic Faith in our business, professional, and personal lives.” That now seems to be difficult to do at Fox News.