09/28/15

Republicans Help MSNBC Create “Global Citizens”

Stephen Colbert, Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the Chair of the Democratic National Committee, were among those appearing at the Global Citizen Festival on September 26, broadcast by cable channel MSNBC.

Incredibly, despite the left-wing slant of the event, Republican Senators Thad Cochran (MS) and Bob Corker (TN) lent their names to the Honorary Congressional Host Committee for the gathering, while Republican Rep. Charlie Dent (PA) was listed as a participant.

Labeled as an effort to eradicate poverty by 2030, the movement to create “global citizens” is actually designed to make the U.N. into a world government to manage a transition to a new worldwide economic system. It’s being called “sustainable development” but amounts to a system of global socialism—redistributing wealth from the United States to the rest of the world.

By the standards of this group, ordinary American citizens are considered greedy consumers, who, according to socialist presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), have too many choices of deodorant and sneakers. He believes a central government should decide on what should be produced and for whom.

The Global Citizen Festival takes this theory of centralized planning to the international level.

In an Orwellian version of “Uncle Sam Wants You,” MSNBC had announced that “MSNBC wants YOU to become a Global Citizen.” Their live coverage of the event, which was held in New York City’s Central Park, was hosted by Alex Wagner, Willie Geist and Janet Mock, and included performances by Pearl Jam and Beyoncé.

Officially, the Global Citizen Festival was supposed to promote 17 Global Goals, also known as Sustainable Development Goals, including that of taking “climate action” to address “climate change.” This was not defined in specific terms, but in December the U.N. holds a climate conference intended to produce a new treaty, which Obama supporters say he plans to implement through executive action, bypassing Congress.

When Pope Francis spoke to the United Nations on Friday, member countries officially “adopted” these Global Goals, which are supposed to be implemented by 2030.

However, the U.S. Congress has not been consulted or asked for a vote on the global agenda, and Republican leaders have been silent about the United Nations attempting to implement on a global basis what Congress has not passed in the form of legislation.

Republican Congressional leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, gave Pope Francis a chance to promote aspects of the global agenda when he spoke to the Congress on Thursday. In his address, the pope referred to his encyclical on climate change, “Laudato Si’,” and urged action “to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.” He added, “I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States—and this Congress—have an important role to play.”

Yet Congress has not been called upon to accept, or reject, the “global goals” adopted by the Obama administration at the U.N.

Despite congressional silence, or acquiescence in the cases of Republican Senators Cochran and Corker and Rep. Dent, the U.N.’s goal of global socialism is out in the open, although few in the media even mention it. However, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has said publicly that the plan is to begin “the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, [changing] the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.” The period 2015 to 2030 is when this transition from oil and gas is supposed to occur. The plan is nothing less than the overthrow of the global capitalist system that is powered by the use of energy and resources for the benefit of humankind.

Veering off into another cause dear to the hearts of the far-left, among the individuals providing on-stage video messages and commitments, was Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia who just signed a “peace deal” in Havana with the Colombian narco-terrorists known as the FARC, who have been waging war on his country for 40 years.

Santos was actually photographed making the deal while holding hands with Cuban President Raúl Castro and a top FARC commander.

Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe called the deal a surrender to terrorism and says it gives Marxist guerrillas an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves and infiltrate the political system.

With “peace” breaking out all over without a peep from Republicans in Congress, those using Google Chrome as a search engine on September 25 found a notice on the bottom of the Internet page urging people to click on a link to learn more about the U.N.’s global goals to “end poverty, climate change, and injustice.” That link led to the U.N.’s “sustainable development goals.”

As the channel leading the effort, MSNBC declared that through its partnership with the Global Citizen Festival it was “committed to connecting our audience with the stories and values that bring purpose and action to our global community.” This clearly means more media manipulation and liberal bias, in order to make the U.N., a body always plagued by corruption, appear to be worthwhile.

In addition to MSNBC, other media properties sponsoring or broadcasting the event included NBC News and CNBC.

Additional corporate partners include The Huffington Post, Yahoo!, YouTube, and Wikipedia, which together have the ability to influence and propagandize the American people with pro-U.N. messages.

Not to be outdone, movie theaters around the country and the world promoted the so-called “Global Goals Campaign” through a 60-second ad narrated by Liam Neeson (as the voice of God), and featuring animated creatures (as U.N. officials) calling on the nations of the world to “defeat climate change.”

But that’s not all. “We’re working to get the Global Goals onto every website and billboard, broadcast on every TV station and radio station, in every cinema and classroom, pinned to every community noticeboard and sent to every mobile phone,” the movement announced.

So look for America’s young people to get indoctrinated about the “global goals,” perhaps through Common Core.

We are truly witnessing a massive international campaign, using most major organs of the media, to “fundamentally transform” the world.

But there’s more. While socialist Bernie Sanders has been quick to attack the “billionaire class” on the campaign trail, those behind this new global citizen movement being put at the service of the U.N. proudly insisted that a grand total of 137 billionaires had “pledged to use their money for good” in the future, undoubtedly by giving more money to far-left and pro-U.N. causes.

It was announced that something called the “Giving Pledge,” defined as “a campaign that encourages the wealthiest people in the world to give most of their wealth to philanthropic causes,” had “been signed by 137 billionaire or former billionaire individuals or couples.” It was originally announced in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was among the “notable younger pledgers.”

Zuckerberg was also among the attendees at Friday night’s White House state dinner for Xi Jingping, the President of Communist China.

This crowd has apparently decided to ignore the lack of human freedom in China, and regards the communist regime as a trustworthy player to bring about a new global 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.

07/1/15

Walmart, Comcast Celebrate Gay Pride

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

“Homo is Healthy” was one of the signs on the official gay pride website for the big march celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage on Sunday, June 28, in New York City. It was brought to you, in part, by Walmart, a high-level Platinum sponsor that happens to be America’s largest private sector employer. The giant retailer was among a “Who’s Who” of corporate America that also included sponsors Coke, Netflix, Hilton, PBS, Macy’s and Comcast Universal (NBC).

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth covered the event, publishing photos of nearly naked men and a “leather” contingent on a truck, among other scenes of debauchery. He said hundreds of children could be seen either marching in or watching the parade. “This is the evidence of why gay marriage and gay parenting are wrong,” LaBarbera told Accuracy in Media.

One photo showed a big rainbow flag being unfurled as the Walmart logo could be seen in the background.

LaBarbera said the scenes of nudity and vulgarity that he photographed at the pride march in New York City provided evidence of how the homosexual lifestyle is something America should not celebrate or make into protected status under law.

For its part, Comcast celebrated June as gay pride month with short films targeting “LGBTQ youth” and “LGBTQ teens.”

Comcast boasted, “In 2013, 2014, and 2015, the company earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and was named a Best Place to Work for the LGBT community.”

Nowhere is homosexual influence more pronounced than Hollywood. However, a new film on homosexual influence in Hollywood, “An Open Secret,” is having a hard time getting distributed, with those involved with the film saying that financial interests in Hollywood have been trying to suppress it. This film, however, does not celebrate “gay pride.” Rather, it exposes victims of sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. The homosexual pedophiles exposed in the film include Marc Collins-Rector, a major figure in the entertainment business who is a convicted child abuser and now a registered sex offender. The film is directed by Amy Berg, who also directed the 2006 American documentary film about a pedophile Catholic priest, Oliver O’Grady, called “Deliver Us From Evil.”

The decision by Walmart to embrace the homosexual rights movement is a case study of how the powerful interests who run the movement have worked their will on corporate America.

Quartz, a digital native news outlet, noted that “When Sam Walton started the company [Walmart] in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, he imbued the chain with a certain small-town conservatism. For instance, it long drew ire for its reluctance to sell music with explicit lyrics.”

Although Walmart still portrays itself as family-friendly, LaBarbera points out that the company is now publicly pro-homosexual and has been giving major grants to homosexual/transgender events and organizations, including $25,000 – $50,000 in 2014 to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that helps elect “out” homosexuals to political office. (Most of them are Democrats.)

The group’s 2011 annual report reveals that openly gay Obama ally, Terry Bean, co-founder of the major homosexual lobby, the Human Rights Campaign, has been a major supporter of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund as well. Bean took a leave of absence from the Human Rights Campaign after he was arrested on sexual abuse charges involving sex with a minor.

Corporate supporters of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund in 2011 included Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Bank of America, Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Shell Oil Company, Microsoft, Wells Fargo and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Wells Fargo achieved notoriety this year by becoming the nation’s first bank to run a national ad including a homosexual couple.

Labor union sponsors of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund included the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association, and the AFL-CIO.

Meanwhile, open homosexuals in the media, such as Edward Snowden mouthpiece Glenn Greenwald, have opened fire on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for exposing the Court’s gay marriage ruling as a “judicial Putsch” that stole the democratic system away from the American people.

Writing on the website of First Look Media, financed by billionaire French-born Iranian-American Pierre Omidyar, Greenwald hailed the ruling and noted that “Harry Hay created the Mattachine Society,” the first homosexual rights organization in the U.S. However, Greenwald failed to point out Hay’s membership in the Communist Party and support for the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Greenwald is one of several media figures on Out Magazine’s list of “most influential LGBT people in American culture.” Others include Anderson Cooper of CNN, Shepard Smith of Fox News, Robin Roberts of ABC, Don Lemon of CNN, Harvey Levin of TMZ, Rachel Maddow and Thomas Roberts of MSNBC, and Kara Swisher of CNBC.

On the conservative side, support for homosexual marriage seems to be growing—or at least coming out of the closet. Mary Katharine Ham, a Fox News commentator and editor-at-large of HotAir.com, has declared herself in favor of same-sex marriage. She has written a book with homosexual political commentator Guy Benson, a Fox News contributor who serves as political editor of the TownHall.com website.

HotAir and TownHall are owned by Salem Media Group, a Christian firm. Salem has refused to respond to questions about its employees becoming advocates for or activists in the homosexual movement.

05/21/15

Ted Cruz Owns a Reporter in Beaumont, TX on Question About Gay Marriage

05/18/15

Stephanopoulos Fiasco is Par for the Course

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

What is surprising about the latest George Stephanopoulos controversy is that most of the media are treating it as something unusual rather than an acknowledgement of a problem that’s been plaguing the media for decades. We at Accuracy in Media are happy to see this issue receive the scrutiny it deserves. However, anyone convinced that Stephanopoulos’s ongoing political conflict of interest and failure to disclose it to his viewers is the exception, not the rule, hasn’t been paying attention to a long history of media corruption.

Stephanopoulos interviewed Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on April 26. But the ABC host, formerly a Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy, and unofficial hatchet-man, for President Bill Clinton, treated his broadcast as more of an interrogation than an interview in an effort to discredit Schweizer and defend, in turn, the Clintons. A real interview would have endeavored to understand Schweizer’s critique of the Clintons, not demand to see a “smoking gun” or “evidence” of a crime.

Stephanopoulos’s conflict of interest was blown wide open by an excellent outfit, The Washington Free Beacon, which started the ball rolling when it contacted ABC News about Stephanopoulos’s donations to the Clinton Foundation. ABC’s spokeswoman, Heather Riley, said that they would respond, but then turned first to a friendly ally—Politico—to spin the story favorably for the network and its golden boy.

“I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record,” said Stephanopoulos in his apology. “However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation.”

ABC News initially incorrectly stated that he had given only $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation—an amount he later amended to $75,000 over three years.

But there’s more, much more.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles reported that Ms. Riley “worked in the White House press office from 1997 to 2000,” including serving “as a press contact for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.”

But beyond that, Schweizer followed up on the week’s revelations, and found that Stephanopoulos’s ties with the Clinton Foundation were much closer than just cutting checks to the foundation. Schweizer called it “the sort of ‘hidden hand journalism’ that has contributed to America’s news media’s crisis of credibility in particular, and Americans’ distrust of the news media more broadly.”

He pointed out that Stephanopoulos “did not disclose that in 2006 he was a featured attendee and panel moderator at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).” Nor did he “disclose that in 2007, he was a featured attendee at the CGI annual meeting, a gathering also attended by several individuals I report on in Clinton Cash, including mega Clinton Foundation donors Lucas Lundin, Frank Giustra, Frank Holmes, and Carlos Slim—individuals whose involvement with the Clintons I assumed he had invited me on his program to discuss.” And on it goes.

Stephanopoulos inadvertently revealed in another setting what donations such as his are all about. “But everybody also knows when those donors give that money—and President Clinton or someone, they get a picture with him—there’s a hope that it’s going to lead to something. And that’s what you have to be careful of,” Stephanopoulos said to Jon Stewart about Schweizer’s theory on April 28. “Even if you don’t get an action, what you get is access and you get the influence that comes with access and that’s got to shape the thinking of politicians. That’s what’s so pernicious about it.”

“Could Stephanopoulos, who is also ABC News’s chief anchor and political correspondent, be hoping for access to and exclusives from Bill and Hillary, giving him a competitive edge during the 2016 presidential campaign?” asks Lloyd Grove for The Daily Beast.

On the May 15 broadcast of Good Morning America Stephanopoulos “apologized” again—while patting himself on the back for supporting children, the environment, and efforts to stop the spread of AIDS. “Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when I covered the foundation, and I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake,” he said. “Even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children, and protect the environment in poor countries, I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.”

The extra mile?

This is, basically, the same argument the Clintons and their Foundation have put forth to explain their conflicts of interest or “errors,” after having taken millions of dollars from companies and countries that had business with the U.S. government while Mrs. Clinton served as Secretary of State. Their failure to disclose many of these donations resulted in them refiling their tax returns for five years, once the obvious conflicts of interest came to light.

In reality the Clinton Foundation gives about 10% of what it collects to direct charitable grants, according to a study by The Federalist, as reported in National Review. “It looks like the Foundation—which once did a large amount of direct charitable work—now exists mainly to fund salaries, travel, and conferences,” writes David French. The study pointed out that “Between 2011 and 2013, the organization spent only 9.9 percent of the $252 million it collected on direct charitable grants.” In other words, less than $10,000 of the money that Stephanopoulos paid as tribute to the Clintons went to the causes he claims to care about.

Stephanopoulos has removed himself from the ABC-sponsored Republican presidential primary debate next February. Yet he simultaneously claimed, “I think I’ve shown that I can moderate debates fairly.” His decision to not participate ignores the bigger picture.

As we have pointed out, the incestuous relationships between the Democrats and media are almost endless. It’s not just ABC’s Sunday show, but the two other main broadcast networks that also feature highly partisan Democrats as hosts. NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd “served as a staffer on Democratic Senator Tom Harkin’s 1992 presidential bid,” according to Politico. John Dickerson, the new host of CBS’s Face the Nation gave the following advice to President Barack Obama in 2013: “The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.”

Stephanopoulos says he should have announced his conflict of interest. If such announcements become commonplace, which they should, where exactly will that end? Should CBS News announce each and every time it broadcasts news about President Obama’s foreign policy or national security issues that the president of CBS News is actually the brother of White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes? Or should ABC News have regularly disclosed that its former ABC News President Ben Sherwood had a sister with the Obama White House? She still works with the Obama administration. And, NBC? That’s the network of Al Sharpton, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow. Need I say more?

Chris Harper, formerly of ABC News, has posted his views, along with those of other mostly liberal former ABC News people, as cited by Kevin Williamson of National Review: “During the 15 years we worked for ABC News,” wrote Harper, “we remember that we had to sign a yearly disclosure of gifts worth more than $25 and contributions. Perhaps these documents no longer exist in the muddled world of TV news.”

Added Harper: “Mr. Stephanopoulos has few defenders among his former colleagues. According to a Facebook page, ABCeniors, the rather liberal bunch of former network staffers discussed the problems with his contributions. ‘That shows either indifference or arrogance. Or a nice cocktail of both,’ wrote one former ABC hand. A former producer noted: ‘He knew what he was doing, and he didn’t want us to know. That’s deceit.’”

Geraldo Rivera recalled that he had been fired from ABC back in 1985 because of a $200 political donation. At least that was the reason given at the time. Rivera wondered why Stephanopoulos was being treated differently: “The point is ABC treated my undisclosed $200 donation harshly because the network wanted me out for that unrelated reason,” Rivera continued. “Now ABC is bending over backward to minimize and forgive George Stephanopoulos’s $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation because he is central to the network’s recent success.”

Former ABC News reporter Carole Simpson said Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources that she “was dumbfounded.”

“But I wanted to just take him by the neck and say, George, what were you thinking?

“And clearly, he was not thinking. I thought it was outrageous, and I am sorry that, again, the public’s trust in the media is being challenged and frayed because of the actions of some of the top people in the business.”

She added that “there’s a coziness that George cannot escape the association. He was press secretary for President Clinton. That’s pretty close. And while he did try to separate himself from his political background to become a journalist, he really is not a journalist. Yet, ABC has made him the face of ABC News, the chief anchor. And I think they’re really caught in a quandary here.” She believes that ABC, despite their public support for Stephanopoulos, is “hopping mad” at him.

When the left has conflicts of interest involving money, the media allow the perpetrators—including themselves—to portray this as charity and supporting good causes. “[NBC’s Brian] Willams wrapped himself in the flag; Stephanopoulos cloaked himself in charity,” writes Grove. MSNBC identified 143 journalists making political donations between 2004 and the start of the 2008 campaign. “Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes,” according to NBC News.

But when conservatives are shown to have financial conflicts of interest, or even to have accepted legitimate campaign donations, they are generally portrayed as serving the interests of evil, greedy businessmen or lobbyists who are paying off politicians to allow them to pollute, destroy the environment, fatten up defense contractors and avoid paying taxes.

“As you know, the Democrats have said this is—this is an indication of your partisan interest. They say… you used to work for …President Bush as a speechwriter. You’re funded by the Koch brothers,” Stephanopoulos told Schweizer during the interview, casting the author as biased. Stephanopoulos, however, they want us to believe, is just an impartial journalist inquiring after the truth.

This is what happens when you have a corrupt media that don’t play fair, but instead put their thumb on the fairness scale to tilt it towards their partisan interests.

04/30/15

Black Mom Changes Leftist Narrative on Violence

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The reaction among responsible black and white law-abiding citizens to the black thugs rioting in Baltimore was captured by Toya Graham, the black mother who smacked her son around when she found him on the streets joining the attacks on police. Even liberals in the major media applauded her efforts.

“I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray,” she told CBS News, referring to her son and the black youth who died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody.

CBS reported, “Graham, a single mom with six children, denounced the vandalism and violence against police officers. She said rioting in Baltimore is no way to go about getting justice for Freddie Gray and that she doesn’t want that life for her son.”

Graham then appeared on the CBS This Morning Show to discuss the incident and the struggle to raise her children.

The important teaching moment represented by this dramatic incident, a brief moment of sanity in the media, undercut the left-wing effort to somehow blame the police for the riots. As a result, the “progressives” had to go on the attack against the black mother.

Over at Think Progress, the blog of the pro-Obama Center for American Progress, Graham was attacked as a “misguided” mother who exercised bad judgment in holding her son accountable. Writer Kira Lerner said the issue was alleged police violence, not rioting in the streets by black youth.

She quoted a woman with a group opposed to “police brutality” as saying that “While she doesn’t condone the looting that was highlighted by the media in Baltimore Monday night, she said she understands where the violent protesters are coming from.”

Meanwhile, over at Hot Air, a piece by Noah Rothman ran under the headline, “Don’t let urban unrest derail conservative criminal justice reform.” While the riots were underway, he insisted that “a consensus opinion” had emerged on both the left and the right in favor of getting soft on criminals and letting more of them out of prison.

In the wake of what has happened in Baltimore and Ferguson, the Republican primary electorate might be tempted to embrace a “tough on crime” candidate, but “That would be a mistake,” Rothman informed Hot Air readers.

What’s more, he lectured them, the war on drugs has “failed” and there is no alternative to letting “non-violent offenders” out of prison.

In fact, the war on drugs did not fail. David Evans, a special advisor to the Drug Free America Foundation, notes that marijuana use went down among young people by 25 percent from the advent of the Reagan administration’s “Just Say No” campaign to the inauguration of President Obama. “If we had had a reduction in any other health problem in the U.S. of 25 percent, we would consider it an outstanding success,” he said.

Being “tough on crime” is precisely what many observers, including that courageous Baltimore mom, have concluded needs to be done in the inner cities.

Going soft was precisely what the Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, had done, accounting for the weak police response to the riots. Former police officer Michael Tremoglie points out that the Baltimore police knew that the mayor had said she wanted “protesters” protected and room furnished for them to “destroy,” and that “They knew that the DOJ [Department of Justice] was ‘monitoring’ what was occurring during the riots.”

Before he came to Hot Air, a site owned by Salem Communications, a Christian firm, Rothman had sung the praises of the pro-marijuana voices in the media such as MSNBC’s Touré. On another occasion, he had highlighted how comedian Kevin Hart and rapper Ice Cube had attacked commentator Nancy Grace’s anti-marijuana comments.

Hot Air, which claims to be the most heavily-trafficked conservative blog on the Internet, has emerged as a forum for pro-marijuana and soft-on-crime viewpoints, most of them articulated by Rothman, a former libertarian writer for Mediaite.

It is certainly true that the Rothman perspective on “criminal justice reform” has been embraced on the left.

As Accuracy in Media noted recently, in an article about a “criminal justice reform” conference held in Washington, D.C., there is a White House-directed effort to enlist conservatives to join with various progressive organizations to weaken laws against a series of violent and non-violent crimes.

Hillary Clinton joined the campaign on Wednesday, saying that “It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration.”

Some readers at Hot Air were astounded by the advice given by Rothman, who cited the Obama Justice Department as a reliable source of information on criminal justice issues, including alleged police violence.

One said, “Isn’t it great when we can come to Hot Air to read some halfwit ‘conservative’ columnist agree with Eric Holder about root causes?”

Another said, “I don’t think this is a very timely post. At least not whilst the animals are burning, looting, robbing, raping, killing each other and forming alliances with opposing gang bangers to destabilize the structure of society.”

Still another called attention to Heather MacDonald’s piece in the New York Post, “The Perilous New Push to Excuse Lawlessness,” as being “a hundred times better than Noah’s.” The writer said, “She’s an actual conservative who lived through the times when ‘law and order’ were questionable values, and conservatives had to fight hard to implement them.”

MacDonald had referred to “a wide-ranging movement [which] is already under way to transform the criminal justice system in order to avoid a disparate impact on blacks.” But since blacks commit a disproportionate amount of the crime, she said that fulfilling this promise “would require gutting murder statutes, and most other criminal laws,” and that the country’s two-decade-long crime drop would be in jeopardy.

Despite cities like Ferguson and Baltimore going up in flames and the rare story of a mother like Toya Graham making a plea for law-and-order, the liberal media are going to make sure that the movement for criminals’ rights that now operates under the goal of achieving “criminal justice reform” will get the lion’s share of the publicity.

Indeed, Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” just ran a favorable story about the “Coalition for Public Safety,” which is trying to make the ACLU sound like a reasonable organization conservatives can work with. Based on what was reported, it looks like some conservative groups are taking the bait.

04/22/15

Obama and the Media Still Hiding Immigration Agenda

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Once again, the Obama administration is deceiving the courts, and the American people, about its plans for amnesty for millions of current and future illegal aliens. And to make things worse, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty, for which President Obama is seeking fast-track authority, would, according to Dick Morris, writing in The Hill, “override national immigration restrictions in the name of facilitating the free flow of labor.” And in this instance, whether wittingly or otherwise, Republicans are lining up to support the President in the name of free trade.

The proposed free trade agreement would undermine Congressional oversight over immigration, adding more power to the presidency, Morris argues. Pair this development with President Obama’s push to legalize illegal immigrants as U.S. residents, and this could become a dangerous policy combination.

Immigration reform is often presented by the media in terms of the human cost, and the alleged inhumanity in not allowing these persons to stay in the United States. The liberal media therefore, delight in pointing to any evidence they can find suggesting hypocrisy on the right on this issue and ignore the blatant abuses by the Obama administration in pursuit of his amnesty agenda.

News coverage of the recent hearing before the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ignores the fact that the Obama administration misled a lower court judge, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, about the implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s, and therefore President Obama’s offer of “temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, along with an indefinite reprieve from deportation.” The administration claims it is acting with prosecutorial discretion, and that it should be able to prioritize the removal of illegal immigrant criminal elements.

The reality is that illegal immigrant rapists and murderers are being released by this administration, and that arrests and deportations of that group have declined, as well.

The administration has acted deceptively. “For three months while the lawsuit was pending and Judge Hanen was reviewing briefs and holding hearings and conference calls with the parties, [Department of Justice] lawyers were telling him that none of the president’s announced new policies were being implemented,” wrote Hans A. Von Spakovsky for National Review on March 20. “However, on March 3, Justice suddenly filed an ‘Advisory’ notifying the court that the administration had, in fact, issued three-year deferrals to more than 100,000 aliens.”

The Department of Justice apparently “knew all along that the administration had started issuing three-year terms of deferred action and work permits” in November 2014, even though “it knew the states’ lawsuit challenged the entirety of the DHS Directive,” he reports.

When Judge Hanen realized what he had been told was false, he told Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kathleen Hartnett: “When I asked you what would happen and you said nothing, I took it to heart. I was made to look like an idiot,” He added, “I believed your word that nothing would happen. . . . Like an idiot, I believed that.”

During the April 17 hearing, Benjamin C. Mizer, Acting Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, argued that “For an employer to employ an individual who does not have work authorization, that employer has engaged in a crime. So giving the deferred action and giving the employment authorization actually reduces crime by reducing the third party employer crime.”

In other words, the administration wants to ignore the alleged illegal acts of one favored group in order to reduce crime by another less favored one.

On April 16, the day before this Fifth Circuit hearing, CNN’s Ariane de Vogue characterized illegal immigrants as the victims of political forces. She reported that President Obama’s unilateral executive policies were “announced with great fanfare” and would “shield” up to “5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation.”

Similarly, Politico’s Josh Gerstein, the day of the hearing, expressed his concern that “If the administration can’t get its new moves underway sometime this year it may have difficulty getting them done before Obama leaves office” and called Obama’s plan a “legacy agenda item.”

Clearly, the media are more interested in the success of programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) than holding the administration accountable.

“It will be an uphill climb for the programs’ supporters, made worse by the fact that two of the judges are Republican appointees who may be hostile to their position,” wrote De Vogue in advance of the hearing—revealing her transparent concern for the administration’s success.

Pundits in the Hispanic media community also continue to mislead their audience by running segments which promote a culture of fear.

MSNBC’s biography of Jose Diaz-Balart lists him as “one of the most respected voices in Hispanic journalism in the United States.” During his April 16 show, he brought on two Democratic Congressmen and asked them softball leading questions all about the climate of fear and uncertainty for those “waiting” in “legal limbo.”

Diaz-Balart asked, “What do you tell them when there’s so much uncertainty about these programs?”

“That fear is not going to go anywhere while this legal limbo continues, and really nothing is being done in Washington as far as immigration reform,” he said.

“But you know there are a lot of families that are being separated that do qualify right now under DACA or DAPA and nothing’s being done,” he commented. In other words, President Obama should act more, not less, to shield illegal immigrants from the consequences of breaking U.S. laws.

An El Paso Intelligence Center report using Obama administration data released last year indicated that “Of the 230 total migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos…”

Diaz-Balart’s Congressional guests spoke about how illegal immigrants can protect themselves and that lawyers will be provided to them, and the show featured pictures of people rallying to the cause.

One must ask, however, whether lawyers, rallies, and endless sympathetic media coverage will also be provided for the potential victims of the dangerous criminals who are currently being released by the administration.

“…both arrests and deportations of criminal aliens are down about 30 percent through the first six months of fiscal year 2015, signaling that agents, who have been told to stop focusing on rank-and-file illegal immigrants, have not been able to refocus on criminal illegal immigrants instead,” wrote Stephen Dinan for The Washington Times on April 14.

A hearing with “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana, also showed that the 30,558 criminal aliens ICE knowingly released back into the community in 2014 had amassed nearly 80,000 convictions, including 250 homicides, 186 kidnappings and 373 sexual assaults,” reports Dinan.

These predators released back into the American community are very likely to strike again.

But the media are not concerned about reporting on the facts which might sully the administration’s reputation or harm the left’s illegal immigration agenda.

04/21/15

Male Stripper Performs At Gay Journalism Event

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Their slogan is, “We’re here, we’re queer. We’re on deadline.” But on April 16^th, when the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) held their 2015 “Headlines & Headliners” fundraiser in New York City, they were cheering a strip-tease performer from Chippendales.

Chippendales strippers usually perform for sex-starved women. This time the audience consisted of sex-starved gay men.

It was an eye-opening experience that included stars from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The emcee was Javier “Javi” Morgado, Executive Producer at CNN’s “New Day” program, who introduced the live auction of two VIP seats at the Las Vegas Chippendales show. He’s a former board member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Tyson Beckford, who has joined Chippendales in Las Vegas as their celebrity guest host, participated in the live auction, encouraging higher bids.

I paid the $150 ticket price to get into the event. This isn’t the first time I had covered and filmed the event, and I never encountered any problems in the past. But this time the group told me to leave. My own video shows the confrontation.

The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association is financed by all of the major media organizations, from MSNBC and CNN on the left to Fox News on the right. It has issued a “Stylebook” to advise news organizations on how to use “lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender terminology.” For example, you are not supposed to use the term “ex-gay,” even though thousands of former homosexuals do exist. The gay “Stylebook” warns that the term “ex-gay” is “mostly rooted in conservative religions” and has been “generally discredited as therapy in scientific circles.”

That this is complete nonsense can be demonstrated by the well-known case of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray. For years she publicly called herself a lesbian, even writing an essay titled, “I Am a Lesbian.” But she got married to de Blasio and has two kids. The gay “Stylebook” is why you rarely see interviews with ex-gays on the air. They are not supposed to exist.

The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association event was actually a public event, in the sense that tickets were available to anybody who bought them. That’s how I got in. In addition to the ticket prices and the financial sponsorship from big media organizations, the auction sold special VIP access to such programs as Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. Other auction items included MSNBC star Rachel Maddow’s book, access to the MSNBC “Morning Joe” program, an “adults only” stay at a hotel and spa, and two tickets to “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

This year’s event was different because of the inclusion of a live auction of two VIP seats to the Las Vegas performance of Chippendales. The auction price went up and up until, finally, at around $1,500 the vacation was sold.

CNN had a big contingent that included its president, Jeff Zucker, and correspondents Brian Stelter, John Berman, Christine Romans, Richard Quest and Brooke Baldwin.

MSNBC sent Contessa Brewer and Willie Geist. Gerri Willis from Fox News was there.

The mix of attendees shows that, on the matter of gay rights, there’s no competition among the big media. They’re on the same side.

I filmed the strip-tease auction and wanted to film the main speech by Meredith Vieira, the day-time talk show host, but was approached by someone with the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association who said I would have to stop filming. I refused and suggested calling the cops. Then, I was approached by Matthew Berger of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, who was accompanied by the building’s security guard. Berger insisted it was a private event that I couldn’t film. I noted that I had filmed it two years ago with no resistance.

Berger is a former reporter for NBC News and the National Journal who went to work for Dezenhall Resources dealing with “crisis communications.” Berger definitely had a crisis on his hands this time.

It may have been the videos of this event that I had taken in the past which had caused the group a problem. Those videos featured a big media star, Natalie Morales of NBC News, boasting about how they had changed public opinion in favor of gay marriage. Natalie Morales declared, “Many of us here in this room—the media—we are responsible for opening the world’s eyes to these issues and the stories that have brought about such change.” These comments seem to cast doubt on the idea of a “fair and balanced” media on the gay rights matter.

Not wanting to cause a physical confrontation, I eventually agreed to stop filming. But according to others who covered the event and recorded the remarks, Meredith Vieira described the next phase of the campaign.

“The transgender community continues to make strides to gain greater acceptance with more portrayals in the mainstream media,” she said. “This past year we saw Laverne Cox make history as the first transgender person to grace the cover of Time magazine, the series ‘Transparent’ on Amazon won two Golden Globes and next week Bruce Jenner breaks his silence in an interview with Diane Sawyer about what many expect to be an open conversation about his transitioning…It is because of organizations like NLGJA that push for fair and accurate coverage of the LGBT community that we are where we are today, continuing to educate decision makers in newsrooms to sensitively cover the issues confronting each and every one of us.”

Of course, the group is not promoting “fair and accurate” coverage at all. Their gay “Stylebook” dictates coverage of the issue to benefit the seemingly endless parade of sexual minorities.

The next stop, as Vieira made clear, is the “rights” of the transgendered. “Bruce Jenner: the Interview” is scheduled to air on April 24.

At the same time, CBS’ soap opera, “The Bold & the Beautiful,” has unveiled a transgender story line about what the New York Daily News describes as one of the show’s most popular female characters, fashion model Maya Avant, being born male.

After the transgendered get their rights, what’s next? My bet is on special coverage for members of the “leather community” who practice forms of sexual bondage. There is actually a New York Bondage Club where people can get tied up, punched, wrapped, or tied down on a cross.

I’m sure The Huffington Post, always on top of the latest bizarre sexual trends, will be updating us on the demands for the rights of those engaged in this “alternative lifestyle.” Indeed, the publication has run several stories about this perversion, even one about the show “Ellen” featuring NBC’s Matt Lauer in bondage gear.

As someone “schooled” by Communist Frank Marshall Davis, a pornographer and pedophile, it is possible that President Obama will extend these bondage practitioners special rights before he leaves office.

04/19/15

Male Stripper Entertains Fox, CNN, and MSNBC Journalists

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Their slogan is “We’re here, we’re queer. We’re on deadline.” It certainly was queer on April 16, 2015, when the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association held its 2015 “Headlines & Headliners” fundraiser in the Prince George Ballroom on East 27th Street in New York City. Take a journey inside the world of gay journalism with Cliff Kincaid, who almost got thrown out of the event. We “name the names” of those in attendance. The next phase of their media campaign is paving the way for “transgendered rights.” After that, who knows?

04/10/15

Sharpton Calls for “National Policing”

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Al Sharpton, President Obama’s “go-to man on race” as described by Politico last year, is at it again. After riling up the nation over false narratives about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, Sharpton has found a case he can get behind where there appears to be little doubt this time that a white policeman, Michael Slager, brutally and unnecessarily shot to death an unarmed black man in South Carolina.

But in our justice system, even that cop deserves his day in court. After all, we were reminded of that right when on Wednesday, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on 30 counts for his role in the Islamic terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon that resulted in four deaths.

Within hours of the release of the cell phone video of Walter Scott being shot dead in North Charleston, South Carolina, Sharpton announced that “It’s time for this country to have national policing,” adding “We can’t go from state to state, we’ve got to have national law to protect people against these continued questions.” Never mind that the cop in question was quickly charged with murder, fired from his job, and is being held in jail without bail. Once again, it appears that Sharpton draws the wrong lessons from such tragedies. No peace, no justice? Or is this what justice should look like? Sharpton announced yesterday that his organization, National Action Network, would stand with Scott’s family.

Jack Cashill, an outstanding journalist, recalls in his latest article just how those false narratives, including the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, take hold. Cashill cites the case of Rolling Stone’s false, and now retracted, story of a gang-rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house. He makes the point that “all right thinking people were of one mind…on the shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, a collective misreporting far more consequential than that of the Rolling Stone rape story.”

The mainstream media often treat MSNBC’s Sharpton like royalty, promoting his left-wing agendas while carefully avoiding mention of his conflicts of interest and continuing corruption. The Washington Post recently published a piece that serves as an ideal example of such biased coverage.

The piece, “Sharpton to lead advocacy campaign in advance of 2016 election,” written by Wesley Lowery, acts as a press release for Sharpton’s National Action Network’s radical civil rights agenda. Lowery described this agenda as promoting Loretta Lynch’s nomination to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, and “opposing state-level religious objections bills, seen as discriminatory against gays and lesbians, and pressing Congress to advance reforms of the criminal justice system.”

Accuracy in Media has extensively outlined how the mainstream media have worked first to stoke racial tension in places like Ferguson, Missouri and then called for criminal justice reform throughout the country, with Sharpton as one of the more vocal media mouthpieces.

“Although he is a lightning rod despised by many police groups, especially the New York Police Department, Sharpton is vowing to take a more considerate line,” reported Lowery.

“We demonstrate that we are serious when we say, ‘Let’s take the name-calling down,’ and when we’re willing to hear from everybody as long as they are serious in substance,” said Sharpton, according to Lowery. “We don’t need a season more of screaming. We need some real policy.”

Sharpton has a show, “PoliticsNation,” on MSNBC on weeknights. According to accusations in a $20 billion racial discrimination lawsuit, and public comments by Byron Allen, a black TV executive, Sharpton has his show on MSNBC “Because he endorsed Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal.” Could that have been a factor in NBC getting the first interview with the gentleman who took the video of the shooting in North Charleston?

Sharpton’s MSNBC show wasn’t even mentioned by Lowery. Neither was his failure to pay back taxes, nor allegations of pay for play, nor that Sharpton was found liable for defamation in the Tawana Brawley case. And with Sharpton’s latest call for “national policing,” once again, Sharpton isn’t getting the media scrutiny he deserves.