09/2/16

Will the KGB Kill Edward Snowden?

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Snowden

In a story headlined, “The New Snowden Movie is the Best PR He’ll Ever Get,” a young writer with no knowledge of Russian espionage operations quotes an ACLU lawyer as saying that the upcoming movie “Snowden” will paint the former NSA analyst living in Russia as “a hero who exposed the great injustices and overreach of the global surveillance state.” The film will therefore “have a huge effect on how the public sees Snowden,” he says.

But the film, scheduled for release on September 16, may be an attempt to salvage the reputations of both Edward Snowden and the filmmaker, Oliver Stone.

Edward Snowden is charged with espionage, and has been described by presidential candidate Donald J. Trump as a traitor who should be executed.

His disclosures of NSA surveillance techniques have assisted America’s enemies and adversaries, including the Islamic State and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I wrote a book about the case, Blood on His Hands: The True Story of Edward Snowden, examining the setbacks for American foreign policy in the wake of Snowden’s theft of classified documents, and the U.S. being caught blind regarding Russian aggression and Islamic State expansion into Europe and America.

Two days before the film’s release, some theaters will feature a live question-and-answer period between Snowden and Stone following a special screening, with Snowden appearing live from Moscow.

Stone is apparently hoping the film will restore his reputation as an avant-garde filmmaker whose previous release, “South of the Border,” was an embarrassing apology for a series of Latin American communists. It depicted Venezuela as heaven on earth and featured interviews with such despots as Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva of Brazil and Raul Castro.

Chavez has since expired and met his maker, while Venezuela is a hell-hole example of how socialism works in practice, with shortages, massive inflation and violations of human rights on a constant basis. Lula da Silva’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, has just been impeached in Brazil. Castro is still in power because Barack Obama and Pope Francis engineered U.S. recognition of the Communist regime in Cuba, and thereby a lifeline of new money.

Trying to make himself newsworthy again, Stone has made the movie, “Snowden,” after a trip to Russia where he met with former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Upon his return, he delivered the commencement speech at the University of Connecticut, where he described Edward Snowden as “an avatar” for the next generation.

Previous avatars have included Aldrich Ames, the CIA traitor, and Robert Hanssen, the FBI traitor. Both were spies for the Soviets and are serving life sentences in prison.

“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country—you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” Trump said to host Eric Bolling on Fox News. “Well, you killed them, Donald,” Bolling replied.

He was apparently referring to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were American citizens executed for espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union back in 1953.

Yet, President Obama’s then-Attorney General Eric Holder actually wrote to the Russians, promising them that Snowden would be spared the death penalty if he returned to the United States.

In a story about how Snowden is pulling in tens of thousands of capitalist dollars for digital speaking appearances from Russia at American colleges and other events like concerts and Comic-Con, Michael Isikoff and Michael B. Kelley of Yahoo! News reported that advance work in the media for the new Snowden movie is being handled by “veteran liberal public relations executive David Fenton.”

That seems appropriate. In the past, Fenton has represented George Soros, the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Salvadoran communist guerrillas and CIA defector Philip Agee.

Snowden seems to be the NSA equivalent of Agee, who defected from the CIA and became a Cuban and Soviet agent. Benjamin S. Civiletti, attorney general in the Carter administration, provided Agee with immunity from prosecution. At the time, the FBI wasarguing for prosecution of Agee on the grounds that he was engaging in espionage activity against the U.S.

Snowden may be seeking to return to the U.S. because of what happened to another defector from the NSA to Russia. Victor Norris Hamilton, a former code analyst with the NSA who defected to Russia, was discovered in the 1990s at a Moscow psychiatric prison hospital. After the Soviets milked him, they put him in a rubber room.

Former Reagan National Security Council staffer Oliver North says that Snowden will be killed by the Russians when they have finished using him for propaganda purposes. Then, he suggests, the Russians will blame his death on the CIA.


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

07/26/16

Democrats’ Racist Roots Examined in New Film

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Hillary

Carol Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, is one of the stars of Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie, “Hillary’s America,” which examined in detail the historical racism of the Democratic Party. It’s a story that hasn’t been told by reporters from the liberal media who keep repeating the mantra that Democrats represent minorities, the poor, the downtrodden and the vulnerable.

The movie highlights the fact that Democratic President Woodrow Wilson attended a screening of the pro-KKK film, “The Birth of a Nation,” in the White House itself.

If you don’t want to believe D’Souza’s facts, consider PBS as a source of information on this particular incident:

“On the evening of March 21, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson attended a special screening at the White House of The Birth of a Nation, a film directed by D.W. Griffith and based on The Clansman, a novel written by Wilson’s good friend Thomas Dixon. The film presented a distorted portrait of the South after the Civil War, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and denigrating blacks.”

The film includes reenactments of historical events, including an actor playing Wilson at the screening of the film nodding and smiling in approval.

Professor Swain, a black conservative, is shown with D’Souza going through various historical documents to highlight the racism of the Democratic Party, which was then considered the home of white supremacists. Swain was a member of Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) Religious Liberty Advisory Council during the campaign.

Of course, as the title suggests, it’s the modern Democratic Party, under the control of Bill and Hillary Clinton, which is the main subject of the film. In one illuminating part, the origins of the push for “birth control” are traced directly to a campaign to produce a superior white race.

In one reenactment, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, is shown speaking to a women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan. That’s followed by excerpts of a modern-day Hillary speech expressing her admiration for Sanger.

Liberals have tried to play down Sanger’s involvement with the KKK, saying she spoke to a variety of different groups. But Sanger’s own book, The Pivot of Civilization, included references to eliminating “human weeds” and sterilizing “inferior” races.

Sanger, who died in 1966, was a revolutionary Socialist who was sexually promiscuous and dabbled in the occult. A sympathetic biography said she became “rabidly anti-Catholic as she grew older.”

The introduction to the D’Souza film examines Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy, especially in the face of Russian aggression in Europe and the Middle East and the rise of global Islamic terror. D’Souza’s previous film was “2016: Obama’s America.”

A reenactment in the new film shows Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state watching a video monitor of Benghazi burning and four Americans dying while she does nothing.

One interesting example of shared interests between Obama and Hillary Clinton is shown in their devotion to the ultimate community organizer, Saul Alinsky. Obama was trained by an Alinsky group in Chicago while Hillary wrote her senior thesis on his organizing techniques and met with him. One reenactment shows her actually advising Alinsky, saying radicals should seize control by taking power from within the government, and not just through outside pressure.

Mrs. Clinton’s continued relationship with former President Clinton, a notorious womanizer accused of sexual assault and even rape, is seen as a partnership that exists to benefit both of them with money and power. That’s brought up to date through an interview with Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, a book just made into a movie. Both the book and movie examine Clinton financial arrangements and business deals with such regimes as that of Putin’s Russia.

The D’Souza movie is marred by the opening, in which D’Souza goes to prison, after having been convicted of violating campaign finance laws. D’Souza wants the public to believe he was singled out in a miscarriage of justice, even though his prosecutor, U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, is now reportedly targeting the Democratic administrations of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo in wide-ranging corruption probes.

At the time that D’Souza admitted his guilt, Bharara stated, “Following the court’s ruling denying Dinesh D’Souza’s baseless claim of selective prosecution, D’Souza now has admitted, through his guilty plea, what we have asserted all along—that he knowingly and intentionally violated federal election laws.”

Although D’Souza is a flawed messenger, he interviews some informed people with access to hard facts that you rarely find in media treatments about the direction of the modern Democratic Party.

There are references to Donald Trump in the film, but only by showing anti-Trump comments made by top Democrats such as Hillary Clinton herself. It takes no position on the presidential race.

Some of those negative comments from Democrats, who say that Trump is a racist, lose their sting when the racist history of the Democratic Party is examined, and when you consider that Mrs. Clinton still pays homage to such figures as Margaret Sanger. Her pick of Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a pro-abortion “Catholic,” confirms her debt to the abortion industry.

By choosing Kaine, Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life, said that Mrs. Clinton “has chosen a man who opposes even efforts to protect unborn babies at 20 weeks old and who doesn’t support efforts to ensure that babies born alive after a failed abortion get the treatment they need to live.”

The disproportionate number of abortions of black babies has been labeled “Black Genocide.”


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

04/14/16

WATCH: Funding update for #EnemiesWithin Movie (video)

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Trevor CPAC 20169

Do you think a movie would be a good tool for people to use to show their families and friends about the dangers of radical Islam and Communist penetration in the highest levels of government? Do you often ask yourself, “How can we wake people up?”

As Trevor and film director Judd Saul explained last week, there is a final push to finish the Enemies Within documentary before the presidential elections.

Trevor and Judd need at least $50,000 to complete the film by the end of May! Can you help? Aside from all of the costs that go into film crew, proper equipment and travel to interview the most knowledgeable insiders, some of the biggest costs include advertising, distribution and insurance.

Watch the latest update from Trevor:

FOR A PREVIEW OF THE FILM, SCROLL DOWN!

Along with film director Judd Saul, Trevor has dedicated his life to creating this movie. Movies are incredibly expensive to make and they need your help to complete the movie.

The following is a short preview of the film:

Watch Trevor expose democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as a hardcore Communist:

The movie is based on Trevor’s book: “THE ENEMIES WITHIN: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress.” If you believe that Americans need to wake up to this very real threat, please help Trevor expose these subversive radicals!

If you believe this is a worthwhile project, help Trevor release the most hard-hitting political documentary ever made!

01/16/16

Benghazi Movie Premiere Was a Memorable and Moving Event

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

This week I had the great honor and opportunity to attend the world premiere screening of the new Michael Bay movie, “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” It is the true story of a group of men—heroes—who risked their lives to attempt to save Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and their colleagues at the Special Mission Compound, and then continued fighting al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists, saving the lives of dozens of people working at the nearby CIA Annex. Among the questions surrounding the film is whether it is meant to be political in any way, and if it is, in fact, political.

The premiere took place at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys football team, and was shown on a screen that was two-and-a-half times larger than the largest IMAX screen. The audience, depending on the source, was in the range of 30,000 to 40,000 people. Tickets were complimentary, and the event was set up as a benefit for military veterans. I was there along with other members of theCitizens’ Commission on Benghazi, which Accuracy in Media established back in the summer of 2013.

We met the three named co-authors of the book on which the film was based, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi—John “Tig” Tiegen, Mark “Oz” Geist, and Kris “Tanto” Paronto—early on, and were well aware of their story. The book and the audio CDs were dramatic and exciting, but nothing prepared us for this movie, which opens this weekend nationwide, and is receiving mixed reviews.

The premiere was quite an event, with two hours of festivities prior to the start of the film. The festivities included interviews with the three afore-mentioned men who were part of the Global Response Staff (GRS) at the CIA Annex; with the director, Michael Bay, who also directed the “Transformer” movies, along with “Pearl Harbor” and “Armageddon;” and with some of the actors, including John Krasinski of “The Office” fame. “Entertainment Tonight (ET),” the syndicated nightly show about the entertainment business, which, like the movie itself, is produced by Paramount, hosted the red carpet event on a stage on the floor of the stadium. You can see the ET report here:

The job of the GRS was to protect CIA personnel who were stationed at the Annex, which was approximately one mile away from the Special Mission Compound, often referred to as the consulate—although it wasn’t actually a consulate. Two of the three, Oz and Tig, were former Marines, and Tanto was a former Army Ranger.

I wrote about this when the book, 13 Hours, came out in 2014, and Fox News did a one-hour special on it. Fox News was punished for it by the Obama administration, according to Greta Van Susteren, who said that Fox was excluded from State Department and Central Intelligence Agency media background meetings. “Well, I think Fox News is being punished for aggressively asking questions, doing our jobs,” said Greta.  That wasn’t all. “A few weeks later, when reporter Jennifer Griffin said she was told that there was a stand down order at Benghazi, I got a weird call from the Obama administration trying to pressure me to get Jennifer to back down on her report. I thought the call from the Obama administration was dirty,” contended Susteren.

The film touches on the personal lives of the men, just enough to help understand their motivations.

I have written extensively about the series of scandals that comprise Benghazi, including this article from last month. And while the movie presents enough background information to touch on all of them—the focus of the film was on the failure to provide adequate security to the ambassador and others at the Special Mission Compound, and the dereliction of duty, in failing to bring military assets to at least attempt to help the security team hold off and kill the terrorists.

Just last month, Judicial Watch, which has unearthed many explosive documents over the last 20 years through Freedom of Information requests, and specifically on Benghazi, received an email pursuant to a 2014 FOIA lawsuit against the State Department. The email was from military chief of staff Jeremy Bash, who wrote to the State Department approximately three-and-a-half hours into the eight-hour attack—well before the terrorists killed CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Glenn Doherty and Ty Woods—that “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak. They include a SOF [special operations forces] element that was in Croatia…”

Sharyl Attkisson, on her weekend Sinclair Broadcasting show “Full Measure,” did an outstanding investigative piece showing that military assets were in place and ready to come to the aid of the CIA Annex, but the request to cross the border into Libya was never made, and the forces that were “spinning” and ready to go were obviously told to stand down, whether by omission or commission. Attkisson’s investigation is divided into two segments of about six-and-a-half minutes each, and I highly recommend watching both segments. Segment one is here:

and segment two is here:

This is the sort of investigative reporting that Attkisson was prevented from doing at CBS News, where she worked for more than 20 years. It just so happens that the president of CBS News, David Rhodes, is the brother of President Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, and this report on Benghazi serves as a devastating indictment of the Obama administration. David Rhodes was named to that position in 2011.

The reasons given by the Obama administration for not sending in Special Forces or military aircraft was that they didn’t have enough time and that the intelligence wasn’t good enough. As then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said during Senate testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, “…time, distance, the lack of an adequate warning, events that moved very quickly on the ground prevented a more immediate response.”

But we know that they had advance warning, both tactical and strategic, of a potential attack in Benghazi. And considering that it was the anniversary of the 9/11/2001 attacks, there was no excuse for not being on high alert anyway. Attkisson’s reporting makes the dereliction of duty very clear.

As much as the movie stays away from politics, and never once mentions Hillary Clinton or President Obama by name, it’s hard to imagine people watching this movie and not being outraged by the failures of this administration to protect these people who put their lives at risk for this country.

Variety magazine headlined its article, “‘13 Hours’ Is Light on Politics, But Sure to Stir Benghazi Controversy.” But not everyone agreed that it was so light on politics.

Many on the left are apoplectic about this film, fearing that it could tarnish even further the legacy of President Obama, and prove to be a serious problem for Mrs. Clinton’s bid for the White House. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a reviewin the left-wing British Guardian:

Don’t tell me this movie isn’t political. Michael Bay’s Benghazi bonanza is timed for release just before the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. It’ll hit DVD in time for the general election. There are approximately 400,000 instances in this not-very-subtle screenplay where Fox News viewers are cued to hiss at a phantom Hillary Rodham Clinton, the right wing’s scapegoat for the missteps that kept the Benghazi outpost fighting so long without backup. As these brave men take fire, their inquiries about air support become a clear indictment against a perceived US policy of pussification. While the boondoggle portrayed in 13 Hours may be based on fact, this is movie is fueled by paranoia and hate. Paranoia about a culture too foreign to grasp except as a bunch of mindless monsters, and hate against a government that won’t let us destroy them. Abhorrent politics aside, it’s also a terrible movie. The dialogue is atrocious, the performances rote.

I personally thought the film was brilliant, powerful and emotional. It felt like you were watching this horrible nightmare unfold before your eyes. I strongly urge everyone to go see this film. You won’t wonder any more what all the fuss is about Benghazi. And I certainly hope that the members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi all see the film before issuing their final report.

01/27/15

Gary Sinise dresses down Howard Dean

By: James Simpson
DC Independent Examiner

Perhaps we should give Howard Dean a break. He is a serial liar and goes off on unhinged rants based on “facts” with no more connection to reality than Disneyland. His behavior can often only be described as lunatic. So perhaps we should just pity the obviously deranged man, say a prayer for him to be restored to sanity, or at least the proper balance of meds.

Anyway, feeling it necessary to weigh in on the great American film, “American Sniper,” Dean said, “There’s a lot of anger in this country, and the people who go see this movie are people who are very angry.” He added, “I bet you if you looked at the cross-section of the tea party and people who see this movie there’s a lot of intersection…”

Now before we react, let’s remember that “American Sniper” is a movie about the heroic acts and hardships faced by Chris Kyle, our nation’s top-rated sniper. It accurately portrays his anguish about duty to country vs duty to his family. I can guarantee you Howard Dean never suffered such conflicts. Dean, like most Democrats, is only anguished when not getting his way – and collapses in episodes of screaming and temper tantrums when this happens. He’s a spoiled, selfish yuppie without the charm.

Actor Gary Sinise, who has done a lot for America’s veterans, had a quick response to Dean that was priceless:

To Howard Dean, I saw American Sniper and would not consider myself to be an angry person. You certainly have a right to make stupid blanket statements, suggesting that all people who see this film are angry, but how is that helpful sir? Do you also suggest that everyone at Warner Brothers is angry because they released the film? That Clint Eastwood, Jason Hall, Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and the rest of the cast and crew are angry because they made the film? Chris Kyle’s story deserved to be told. It tells a story of the stress that multiple deployments have on one military family, a family representative of thousands of military families. It helps to communicate the toll that the war on terror has taken on our defenders. Defenders and families who need our support. I will admit that perhaps somewhere among the masses of people who are going to see the film there may be a few that might have some anger or have been angry at some point in their lives, but, with all due respect, what the hell are you talking about?

Yes Howard, what the Hell are you talking about? But there is truth to what Dean says. I am angry right now. I become so every time I hear a phony, fraud, corrupt, self-serving, slime ball like Howard Dean disgracing our country, its heroes and its people with spiteful, dishonest invective. It is a reminder – and we get more than enough every single day with the Zero-in-Chief – that Dean, Obama and people like them are literally destroying our country before our eyes, while shoving our tax dollars in their pockets as fast as they can. So in that sense, I guess maybe Dean has a point after all. I rarely take time to listen to these idiots, but when I do, I guess I understand Dean better, because I feel in need of meds myself.

01/27/15

America’s Enemies in Hollywood Then and Now

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

A Special Report from the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism

With the war on Islamic terrorism being portrayed as a righteous cause in “American Sniper,” the Clint Eastwood film breaking box office records, a book which documents the days when Hollywood was a mouthpiece for communist propaganda might seem out of date. But Allan H. Ryskind’s book, Hollywood Traitors, is a reminder that Hollywood can’t always be counted on to take America’s side in a war, even a World War when the United States faced dictators by the names of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The Ryskind book, published by Regnery, documents how the much-maligned House Committee on Un-American Activities, known as HUAC, uncovered dramatic communist infiltration of Hollywood and forced the studios to clean house.

Ryskind calls HUAC’s investigation of Hollywood in 1947 and 1950 “one of the most effective, albeit controversial, probes ever carried out by any committee of Congress.” He adds, “HUAC had revealed that Hollywood was packed with Communists and fellow travelers, that the guilds and the unions had been heavily penetrated, and that wartime films, at least, had been saturated with Stalinist propaganda. Red writers were an elite and powerful group in Hollywood—many of them working for major studios.”

He writes that, “HUAC, though bruised by elite opinion, had won the support of the American people and a victory over Hollywood Communists, fellow travelers, and the important liberals who supported them.” Members of Congress involved in HUAC did their jobs, in the face of opposition from “the East coast establishment newspapers” like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The book reminds us that the Hollywood agents of Stalin had also been “Allies of Hitler,” a threat symbolized on the book cover by a Hollywood director’s chair featuring a Nazi swastika. The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-1941 had paved the way for World War II.

As a result of the purging of communists from Hollywood, the so-called “blacklist,” we entered a time, from about 1947 to 1960, when the communists lost control of the major Hollywood unions and “the studios were actually creating anti-Communist pictures,” Ryskind writes. It was a remarkable turnaround.

But while Hollywood did turn anti-communist, at least for a while, the communists scored their own ultimate victory, succeeding in forcing Congress to abolish HUAC. The committee, which had been renamed as the House Internal Security Committee, was the target of what HUAC called the Communist Party’s “Cold War against congressional investigation of subversion.”

For many years, there was a comparable body in the Senate, which went by different names but tackled such matters as “Castro’s Network in the United States,” a 1963 investigation into the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” that we later learned included JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

To those insisting it was somehow inappropriate to ask Hollywood figures about their “political beliefs,” Ryskind counters that “Few questions could have been more important for a congressional committee to ask than whether American citizens were actually serving as agents of a hostile foreign government.” He said HUAC was engaging in hearings designed to accurately disclose membership in the Communist Party, “a subversive organization controlled by an enemy nation and designed to turn America into a Communist country…”

In its battle against communism, HUAC had subpoena power and was not afraid to use it. HUAC also issued contempt citations against those who refused to testify completely and truthfully. All of the members of the so-called “Hollywood Ten,” who refused to testify about their involvement in the Communist Party, eventually went to prison.

Ryskind cites estimates that over 200 Hollywood Communists were named in this process. His book provides the Communist Party card numbers of the Hollywood Ten as well as the names of other “well-known radicals,” many of them overt Communists, who were active in the movie industry.

Bring Back HUAC?

Today, with dozens of leading conservatives now clamoring for congressional action to “Stop the Fundamental Transformation of America,” the Ryskind book may add to the impetus for Congress to reestablish a HUAC-style panel. The George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) acted frightened and alarmed in 2010 when Rep. Steve King (R-IA) expressed agreement with my suggestion at that time that re-establishment of such a committee would be a good idea. “I think that is a good process and I would support it,” he said.

The oath of office for members of Congress requires that they support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” HUAC is a model for how such a problem can be identified and confronted.

Donald I. Sweany, Jr., a research analyst for the House Committee on Un-American Activities and its successor, the House Committee on Internal Security, sees the need for such a committee. He has issued this statement:

“The re-creation of the House Committee on Internal Security will provide the Congress of the United States, Executive Branch agencies and the public with essential and actionable information concerning the dangerous and sovereignty-threatening subversive activities currently plaguing America. This subversion emulates from a host of old and new entities of Marxist/Communist revolutionary organizations and allied militant and radical groups, some of which have foreign connections. A new mandated House Committee on Internal Security is of great importance because it would once again recommend to Congress remedial legislative action to crack down on any un-American forces whose goals are to weaken and destroy the freedoms which America enjoys under the Constitution. In addition, this legislative process will provide public exposure of such subversives.”

Ryskind’s father, Marx Brothers screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, testified before HUAC about communist penetration of Hollywood that he had learned about first-hand through his involvement with the Screen Writers Guild. Morrie Ryskind had attended the Columbia School of Journalism in New York and written for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper World. But he underwent a political transformation, from an anti-war socialist who became disillusioned with FDR to a Republican determined to stop the communist advance. He wrote for conservative publications such as Human Events and National Review, which he helped William F. Buckley Jr. launch.

Morrie Ryskind helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to counteract the work of the communists and educate the American people about what was at stake. The Ryskind book also notes how the American Legion and various Catholic organizations were focusing attention on Hollywood’s far-left elements and making the public aware of this problem.

The book includes Allan Ryskind’s memories of his Hollywood upbringing, including meeting famous people such as top Communist Party leader Benjamin Gitlow. He spent decades as editor of Human Events, which was President Ronald Reagan’s favorite paper. It also became known for its aggressive reporting on the communist and socialist threats. Reagan so appreciated the weekly paper that he had arranged for copies to be sent to him personally at the White House residence.

Ryskind, who still serves as Human Events editor-at-large, documents the development of Reagan’s anti-communism in Hollywood Traitors. Reagan began his acting career as a liberal who got involved in Communist-front activities, later realizing that the “nice-sounding” groups he was supporting were secretly controlled by members of the Communist Party. He carried this understanding and analysis of the communist threat into his presidency and talked openly about the growing Marxist influence in Congress as he battled with congressional liberals and tried to stop the Soviet advance in Latin America.

In fact, as President, he told journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in a 1987 interview that “I’ve been a student of the communist movement for a long time, having been a victim of it some years ago in Hollywood.” He said that he regarded some two dozen Marxists in Congress as “a problem we have to face.”

The problem is far worse today. Analyst Trevor Loudon now counts the number of Marxists in Congress at more than 60, a fact that would seem to make it more of a controversy to re-establish HUAC, but even more of a reason to do so. All it would take is more courageous members like Rep. King, backed by the House Leadership. Such a committee would be able to seriously analyze an area that remains off-limits to the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, and the Select Committee on Benghazi—subversive infiltration of the highest levels of the U.S. government, including the White House and Congress.

One key to HUAC’s success was finding those in Hollywood, including in the unions, willing to name names and identify the subversives. Reagan testified before HUAC and took a leadership role in defeating communist influence in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), later becoming the union’s president. Labor leader Roy Brewer was another effective anti-communist in Hollywood highlighted in Ryskind’s book.

Although the 506-page book is based on HUAC hearings, Ryskind conducted independent research that adds to his case against the Hollywood traitors. For example, he combed through the historical papers of one major Hollywood-Ten figure, the Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who refused to cooperate with HUAC and expose his comrades. Ryskind reports on an unpublished script Trumbo wrote that treated the invasion of South Korea as a “fight for independence” for the communist north.

Trumbo wrote many excellent film scripts, including Roman Holiday, but was “a hard-core Party member, a fervent supporter of Stalinist Russia and Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, and an apologist for Nazi Germany until Hitler double-crossed Stalin and invaded the Soviet union,” Ryskind notes. “Yet to this day he is regarded as a hero in Hollywood.”

Almost on cue, as Ryskind’s book was being published, it was reported that Hollywood is planning a new film which glorifies Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” fame as the screenwriter. The battle over communist influence is slated to return for another act.

Love for Cuban Communism

The book’s chapter, “Hollywood Today,” tries to bring the communism problem up to date by examining Hollywood’s love affair with the longtime Stalinist ruler of Cuba, Fidel Castro. He writes that much of Hollywood “is still lured by the romance of Marxism, and its films are still filled with heavy doses of anti-American propaganda.”

More details are provided in Humberto Fontova’s excellent books, Fidel: Hollywood ‘s Favorite Tyrant and The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.

I recently asked Fontova why a Stalinist like Castro gets fawning treatment, while the Stalinist North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is ridiculed in the movie The Interview. “My best guess is that it’s a generational thing, nostalgia mostly,” he told this writer. The Castros and Che Guevara, he said, are perceived as “the first hippies” or beatniks.

Indeed, The Longest Romance quotes The New York Times reporter who helped bring Castro to power, Herbert Matthews, as saying, “Castro’s is a revolution of youth.” Fontova adds, “The notion of Castro’s Cuba as a stiflingly Stalinist nation never quite caught on among the enlightened. Instead the island often inspires hazy visions of a vast commune, rock-fest or Occupy encampment, studded with free health care clinics and with [the hippie icon] Wavy Gravy handing out love-beads at the entrance.”

Perhaps the pro-Castro influence in Hollywood is something that a new HUAC might want to tackle.

Another issue worth investigating is how Hollywood has also come under the influence of radical Islam. For example, the 2002 film, “The Sum of All Fears,” which was the movie version of the Tom Clancy book of the same name, replaced the Arab terrorist villains with neo-Nazis so as not to offend the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. The Fox network responded to complaints about its popular series “24” depicting Muslims in America secretly plotting terrorism by running public service announcements from CAIR portraying American Muslims as moderate and peaceful.

The book, Council on American-Islamic Relations: Its Use of Lawfare and Intimidation, has an entire chapter on how CAIR attempts to silence its critics in radio, television, and the film industry.

There will be those in Congress and the media who will argue against the return of anything resembling the old HUAC, contending that “McCarthyism,” or the anti-communist “witchhunt,” is the greater danger. The truth about McCarthy’s investigations is provided in the M. Stanton Evans book, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight against America’s Enemies.

It bears repeating that Senator McCarthy never had anything to do with the House committee or its investigation of Hollywood.

This book is a valuable contribution to understanding a dangerous time in American history when America’s elected representatives and the people themselves rallied to the defense of their homeland against these foreign and domestic enemies.

While it is worth noting that the veteran Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood has bypassed the censors at CAIR with “American Sniper,” this kind of film is the exception and not the rule. The film portrays the great sacrifices being made by U.S. military personnel in the Middle East as they combat an enemy that is depicted as savage and barbaric. It is based on the life of Chris Kyle, an Iraq War veteran and Navy SEAL who joined the Armed Forces to defend his country from Islamic terrorism.

Zaid Jilani, a “progressive” writer who left the Center for American Progress after being charged with anti-Semitism, has emerged as one of the film’s most vocal critics. A regular on the Kremlin channel Russia Today (RT) and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al Jazeera, he insists the film about the “remorseless” sharpshooter has sparked “anti-Muslim bigotry,” and he complains about it becoming “a rallying point for the political right.”

However, he admits that Eastwood’s skill as a filmmaker could result in a “Best Picture” award for “American Sniper” and “Best Actor in a Leading Role” award for Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle. He just can’t bring himself to admit that the pro-military and anti-terrorist message is also a major factor in its success. The Academy Awards take place on February 22.

Indeed, this is the fear from the modern-day “progressives”—that Hollywood will rediscover the box office appeal of American patriotism.

But according to the annual Reuters/Ipsos Oscars poll, if ordinary Americans voted for the Academy Awards, “American Sniper” would be the Best Picture winner. Those who wonder why we don’t get more pro-military and pro-American movies out of Hollywood should read Ryskind’s new book.

01/7/15

Stonewall is not Selma

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

President Obama has celebrated anti-police riots at a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, saying, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma and Stonewall…”

With the new film “Selma” opening on Friday, Obama’s claim deserves some serious scrutiny from the media. In Selma in 1965, protesters were met with force and violence from the police. Martin Luther King, Jr. had led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators from Selma, Alabama to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. At Stonewall in 1969, gay protesters waged war on the police. Obama apparently can’t see the difference. (Seneca Falls is the name of the city in New York that served as the location for an 1848 conference on the rights of women in society.)

Our forebears were rioting homosexuals at a bar waging a war on the police? That’s what Obama is saying. What’s more, he’s comparing homosexuals fighting the police to blacks marching for their rights, including the right to vote.

The truth, as the video “From Selma to Stonewall” shows, is that the homosexual demands for political power based on their sexual needs and desires were far different than black people peacefully seeking their civil rights through protests and demonstrations. “Gay is not the new black,” notes the narrator, Eric Holmberg.

What’s more, in 1969 Stonewall was a location for men known as chicken hawks wanting sex with underage boys. Some of the homosexuals were, indeed, harassed by law enforcement. But the police who raided the place were also getting complaints about homosexuals having sex on the streets and in public bathrooms, and their use of illegal drugs.

Nevertheless, the date of the raid and the riots, June 28, 1969, is now “celebrated” as a “gay pride” event.

The far-left view, which has been embraced by Obama, is that violence can be a necessary part of progressive “change,” and that the Stonewall riots were a milestone on the road to equality.

In the case of the riots in Ferguson, the latest example of progressive change, recent documents obtained by Judicial Watch show high-level Justice Department involvement. Judicial Watch reported that the documents “suggest that the [Justice Department] unit deployed to Ferguson took an active role in working with those fomenting unrest and demanding the prosecution of police officer [Darren] Wilson. As indicated by their own activities, the CRS [Community Relations Service] agents were not there to impartially advance the broad public interest. Instead, we learned from the documents that the CRS made every effort to advance a political agenda in tandem in special interests whose only goal was to stir up racial unrest.”

So while we face foreign threats of violence, our own Justice Department stirs things up domestically. In New York City, that has meant the murder of two police officers.

The complete story of the “Ferguson rebellion,” as the Marxists call it, has yet to be written. Meanwhile, under Obama’s direction, the National Park Service is actually designating the Stonewall Inn as a National Historic Landmark, saying, “Stonewall is nationally significant because it is associated with events that outstandingly represent the struggle for civil rights in America.”

These attacks on police are celebrated as “progress” on the road of Marxist dialectical change. So perhaps the Ferguson riots will also become the scene of a national historic landmark.

We had noted back in 2009 in our piece titled, “Obama Celebrates Anti-Police ‘Gay’ Riots,” that “Several police officers trying to enforce the law at the sleazy establishment [Stonewall] were injured by violent homosexuals.” Police had to defend themselves and the community against violent protesters.

Police reports say that one of the victims was a police officer “treated at nearby Saint Vincent’s Hospital after being bitten on the right wrist by a Stonewall rebel.” One officer was beaten about the face with an “unknown object,” one was hit in the eye and injured, and another was shoved and kicked.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced earlier this year “a new theme study to identify places and events associated with the story of LGBT Americans for inclusion in the parks and programs of the National Park Service.” She made the announcement outside the Stonewall Inn.  This was followed, on June 10, by a National Park Service “scholars roundtable” regarding this initiative.

Jewell declared at the event, “I had a great day, one of the best days in my 14 months or so in this chair about 10 days ago. That was at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village when we announced the National Park Service’s undertaking this theme study. It was a great day.”

Tim Gill joined Jewell at the Stonewall event. He is the founder of Quark, Inc., a computer software company worth $500 million. The Gill Foundation, which now claims assets of $260 million, has been described as the largest funder of gay and lesbian causes in the United States.

Gill is also the major financial supporter of the National Park Service campaign to “celebrate” the riots at Stonewall, and find other places to designate as critical to the homosexual struggle. The study is called a “public-private partnership,” with funding provided by the Gill Foundation through the National Park Foundation.

How far will the recognition of “gay rights” go? Just  a few doors down from the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City is a place that sells various sexual devices, blindfolds, handcuffs, and even a cage for one’s sexual “partner.” So-called “leather pride” is a prominent aspect of homosexual rights today. A few doors down is a “New Age” shop with crystals, incense, and books about witches. In the same vicinity is a “head shop” featuring marijuana smoking devices.

The life and times of Harry Hay, a communist agitator for homosexual rights and “man-boy love,” could receive a special designation as well.

A “Spirit of Stonewall” proclamation was issued in 1994 arguing that “man-boy love” had to be recognized as an important part of homosexual history and conduct. Hay, the founder of the modern gay rights movement and member of the Communist Party, was one of the signers. Hay had been upset that sexual abusers of children were not permitted to march in the regular gay pride parade.

The North American Man-Boy Love Association celebrates his contributions to their “struggle.”  NAMBLA calls them “intergenerational relationships.”

The National Historic Landmark Nomination form for the Stonewall Inn notes that Hay had spoken of the “magnificent Stonewall Rebellion [which] erupted here in New York City…revealing in a flash our next new concept…gay—as a socially viable collective identity.” It refers to Hay’s demonstration for adult-child sex as merely an “alternative march” in 1994.

But Hay is not alone in the homosexual rights movement for his support of sex with children.

On October 10, 2009, Obama mentioned Stonewall, as well as his “great friend and supporter, Terry Bean,” a co-founder of the major homosexual lobby, the Human Rights Campaign.  Obama referred to “the story of the Stonewall protests, when a group of citizens—(applause)—when a group of citizens with few options, and fewer supporters stood up against discrimination and helped to inspire a movement.”

Bean has since taken a leave of absence from the Human Rights Campaign after he was arrested on sexual abuse charges involving sex with a minor.

Charles C. Johnson of GotNews reports that through the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, Bean financed a film called “Dream Boy,” described as a gay, love story about a shy high school kid who gets seduced by his neighbor and school pal. We confirmed that the foundation, which Bean chairs, lists an investment in Dream Boy LLC in its 2010 income tax return, and that Dream Boy LLC was the registered agent for the film when it was featured at a 2008 “Outfest” homosexual film festival. The film was rated R for sexual content, with some violence, including a rape involving teens.

The Holmes Foundation is based on assets accumulated by homosexual pornographer Charles M. Holmes, a friend of Bean who died of AIDS and owned Falcon Studios, which is said to be the world’s largest producer of “high quality gay male videos.”

The Bean arrest has put the focus back on the fact that the idea of having sex with children, in addition to anti-police violence, has been part of the homosexual rights movement in the United States all along. This is what “Stonewall” has come to represent.

Obama wants the taxpayers to sponsor this “celebration” of perversion.

Our first president, George Washington, who court-martialed sodomites and kicked them out of the revolutionary army, must be turning over in his grave.

Considering how the Obama administration regards Stonewall, it is not unreasonable to assume that the location of the “Ferguson rebellion,” as the communists call it, will be designated in the next two years as a national historic landmark. Perhaps the actual location will be a looted or burned-out building.

It will signal yet another phase in the fundamental transformation of the United States.

The new Republican Congress has the opportunity to stop official historical recognition for a gay bar that featured an anti-police riot. But will any GOP House or Senate member challenge Obama’s version of history?

12/25/14

The amazing story behind the Christmas classic, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

By: Renee Nal
New Zeal

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

The beloved holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released in 1946. Despite it’s popularity today, it did not fare well at the box office, and it was given poor reviews by cynical movie critics at the time.

Jimmy Stewart said that out of all the movies he had made, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was his favorite. The Director, Frank Capra described the film’s theme as “the individual’s belief in himself” and that he made it “to combat a modern trend toward atheism.”

But in the case of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” something magical happened almost 30 years after the movie was released. Because of a “clerical error” in 1974, the film’s copyright was mistakenly not renewed. Television stations were able to air the film at no cost.

So they did, and Americans fell in love.

The mainstream media’s disdain for anything wholesome and family oriented is not a new phenomenon. One critic decried the “sentimentality” of the movie.

Bosley Crowther from the New York Times concluded,

“the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer’s point of view, is the sentimentality of its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra’s nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow they all resemble theatrical attitudes rather than average realities.”

In 1947, film critic Manny Farber wrote,

“To make his points [Capra] always takes an easy, simple-minded path that doesn’t give much credit to the intelligence of the audience”, and adds that there are only a “few unsentimental moments here and there.”

In a 2010 ”Salon.com” piece, Richard Cohen described ”It’s a Wonderful Life” as “the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made“; in the “Pottersville” sequence, he wrote, George is not “seeing the world that would exist had he never been born“, but rather “the world as it does exist, in his time and also in our own.

Ah, the cynical critics have not changed. How many other potential classics were squashed?

Of the newfound success of the film, Frank Capra said,

“It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

This article has been cross-posted from Liberty Unyielding.