10/28/15

Wake Up America: Democrats at War with We The People

By: Lloyd Marcus

Please forgive me for sounding like a doting dad, but I was blessed to watch my adult daughter play softball in the world series. http://bit.ly/1PKcc3n I beamed with pride as the out fielders backed up when she came to bat. However, what I am about to report will further entrench me as a traitor in the minds of other blacks in my family.

My wife Mary alerted me to the latest horrific incident of the Knockout Game that was ignored by the mainstream media. In New Jersey, a black thug knocked out an unsuspecting defenseless white woman. http://bit.ly/1LMv52V In Baltimore, 50 black teens almost beat a 61 year old white man to death which was again hidden from most Americans. http://dailym.ai/1IyLIgm My former employer WJZ-TV Baltimore refused to mention that the attackers were black in their coverage. And yet, race is the first thing out of reporters’ mouths in those rare incidences in which whites assault blacks. Stats show that blacks assault whites far more that vice versa.

I am the first to say everyone is solely responsible for their behavior. However, I see these black assaults on whites as the fist of the Democratic Party punching out innocent whites; the hand of the Democratic Party pulling the trigger assassinating police officers across America.

Democrats with MSM assistance have successfully convinced many black youths to believe white America is racist, murderers and responsible for all of black America’s woes. This Democrat insidious lie has caused black youths to feel morally justified in punishing their white Nemesis.

Few people realize the Democratic Party is at war with America. Yes, I am unequivocally saying everything the Democratic Party does is an attack on traditional morals and values. The Party leadership is repulsed by our God given freedom and rights written in the Constitution. Due to his radical education and perverted view of morality Obama believes the world has too little because America has too much. He is using his presidency to dethrone America as the world power.

From the Oval Office to numerous corrupted liberalism-infected government agencies, Democrats arrogantly bully and govern with an iron fist against the will of a majority of Americans. In essence, the Obama regime gives the American people the finger, daily.

From their perch of superiority, Democrats and liberal celebrity elitists believe only they should be permitted to bear arms, rather than us hayseed commoners. http://bit.ly/1RsKJAI These elitists live in massive mansions, drive gas guzzlers and use massive amounts of fuel flying their private planes. Meanwhile, they lobby to force us peons to drive tiny tin cans, use public transportation and “lower our carbon footprint” to “save the planet”.

Here are just a few examples of the Dems hidden war against Americans.

The nationwide epidemic of blacks attacking innocent whites is due to a clarion call to attack by Democrat inspired and supported Black Lives Matter. http://bit.ly/1PJaXk0 What is so frustrating and crazy is the BLM movement was founded on the lie that white cops and white civilians routinely murder blacks. Furthering this hate-generating lie, legitimizing and empowering the vile hate group, the Democrat National Committee has given BLM its blessing to host a presidential town hall – to discuss “racial justice.” http://wapo.st/1M97ZFX Give me a break. Why not invite the KKK as well?

Then there is Kate’s Law which was voted down in the Senate by 44 Democrats. http://bit.ly/1ZVBgru

Thirty-two year old Kate Steinle while enjoying a leisurely stroll with her dad on a San Francisco pier was shot by an illegal who was convicted and deported numerous times. And yet, he kept coming back to the US.

Kate’s Law is a mandatory five years in jail for felony illegals who keep coming back. To protect our families, a majority of Americans want Kate’s Law. Democrats said screw you America. We want to continue rolling out the welcome mat to illegals because we are working on giving them the right to vote. With all the government handouts we offer, we are pretty confident the illegals will become loyal Democrat voters. So, screw Kate, her family and you America!

Another reason why Obama and the Democrats ignore federal law encouraging the invasion of illegals is they believe America has been too white for too long. http://bit.ly/1NYNQ5C I have to endure a rant from my wife every time she has to “press one for English”.

Despite national protest rallies and massive intense opposition from the American people Obama officially signed his insane Iran Nuke deal giving the world’s largest sponsors of terrorism $150 billion. http://fxn.ws/1jvMJxG Iranians boldly chant, “Death to America”. Obama lied claiming there are ballistic missile restrictions in his Iran Nuke deal. http://bit.ly/1HPKB8M There are not. And where will those missiles be pointed? The answer is America. Ponder that folks.

By the way, a majority of American voters still oppose Obamacare. http://bit.ly/KwkxsZ Obamacare is another example of the Democrats saying screw you, we’re taking over your health care, deciding who lives or dies whether you like it or not.

Average American Joe knows very little regarding what happened at our U.S. consulate in Benghazi Libya. In a nutshell, Ambassador Stevens begged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for more security, saying they were sitting ducks for Al Qaeda terrorists. http://dailym.ai/1NY7ezC Stevens’ request was denied. Nothing, including Stevens and his staff’s lives, would be allowed to contradict the Obama Administration’s lie that Al Qaeda was no longer a threat. Ambassador Stevens and other Americans were killed in a terrorist attack on our consulate. Stevens’ body was abused and dragged through the street.

To protect the Administration’s terrorism-is-not-a-problem lie, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Obama appeared on numerous TV shows insisting that the attack was a spontaneous protest sparked by an anti-Muslim video. Emails revealed that Hillary knew the attack had nothing to do with a video and was a planned Al Qaeda terrorist attack. http://bit.ly/1hY2vj0

Displaying the self-serving callousness of a sociopath, Hillary looked Pat Smith, mother of Benghazi victim Sean Smith, in the eye and promised to punish the producer of the video that caused the death of her son. http://bit.ly/1OWpNTp

It is extremely chilling that a major political party places its liberal agenda above the lives and best interest of Americans. This is how their party rolls folks; Democrats verses We The People.

In softball, my daughter is a “natural”. She hit a blast into the stadium lights, exploding them. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit. She did hit a ground ball single that drove in the winning run. That’s my girl!

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

04/13/15

Conservative Writer: Liberalism Is ‘Totalitarianism Masquerading As Tolerance’ [VIDEO]

By: Ginni Thomas
The Daily Caller

With millennial support for President Obama dropping from 58 percent in 2009 to 34 percent last December, Benjamin Weingarten, 26, demonstrates confidence as a foe of secular progressives.

Weingarten prides himself for studying those who don’t value our founding principles while studying at Columbia University and living in New York and New Jersey. Nineteen months ago, he left a promising career on Wall Street to join Glenn Beck’s The Blaze to influence the cultural and political debates of our time.

By interviewing authors of provocative books, doing podcasts and appearing on Beck’s programming, Weingarten is engaging the culture to reclaim traditional American ideals. In New York and New Jersey, he admits he basically “gets push back every time he opens his mouth.”

In this wide-ranging video interview with The Daily Caller, Weingarten discusses the troubling phenomenon of “totalitarianism masquerading as tolerance.” He finds it curious that the secular left refuses to defend the free speech of someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali — who left her Muslim faith after horrendous personal harm and at great risk. Weingarten says, the “left is tolerant of people who take their viewpoint. And, no matter what your identity, if you disagree with their viewpoint, you are the enemy.”

On the Iran deal, Weingarten said “if there were ever a case where the devil was in the details, this would be it.” Surveying international reactions, Weingarten commented, “If the French are taking a harder line against the Iranians than America, then something is seriously rotten in our national security establishment and in the Executive Branch.”

As for the administration’s allies calling Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and his Republican colleagues “traitorous” for merely reminding Iran that the Senate must ratify any binding treaty, Weingarten says, “when it serves their interest, the left would like to have nothing to do with Congress.”

Progressives, he mentions, push their agenda by any means necessary. After November’s elections, Obama, Weingarten says, is “un-tethered from constitutional authority,” “brazen,” “audacious” and “dangerous.”

The Obama foreign policy doctrine, driven by the progressive worldview, is, he says, “to spit in the face of our allies and coddle our enemies.”

Our adversaries, according to Weingarten, are Russia, China, Islamic extremists and Iran. As for the Muslim Brotherhood allies in America who now advise the Obama national security team, we have “foxes guarding the henhouse.” He thinks “we are willfully blind” and seem overdue for another catastrophic act from terrorists.

As for the record of House and Senate Republicans, Weingarten is underwhelmed, calling them “derelict.”

Weingarten lays out criteria — such as amnesty, common core, and liberty — to judge the growing field of nominees posturing to run for president in 2016. Two vulnerabilities for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, according to Weingarten, are the calamitous and mistaken Russian reset, and the entire Libyan debacle. Clinton’s toppling of the Libyan leader with its horrendous consequences should be something she is held responsible for, Weingarten believes.

WATCH:

For more on Benjamin Weingarten and his work at Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze Books, see his author page and his personal Twitter account, as well as TheBlaze Books podcast, and TheBlaze Books page, Twitter and Facebook.

04/11/15

Obama Warns Parents: Your Kids Are Mine

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

President Barack Obama has issued a declaration on human sexuality and what constitutes moral and mental health for the nation. He is warning Christian parents that the federal government wants their kids.

This is not how the story is being reported, however. For example, a story in Politico carries the headline, “Barack Obama denounces ‘conversion therapies’ for gays,” with the words “conversion therapies” in quotes, as if to suggest there’s some doubt that homosexuals can return to being straight. This is all too typical of the mentality that grips the major media and is designed to suggest that homosexuality is somehow natural and cannot be changed. But honest journalism, which is virtually non-existent when covering homosexuality, would take a different approach to the topic.

As Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth notes, there are plenty of former homosexuals. Has the Politico reporter Louis Nelson ever met or reported on them? We can’t find any record of that. So if the magazine doesn’t report on them, they must not exist. This is not journalism but cheerleading for Obama and the gay rights cause. It’s also a disservice to the parents of young people who need help and have a right to information about both sides of the story.

Rich Wyler, founder and director of the group, People Can Change, does not exist in a world where the liberal media and the gay rights movement become one and the same. He says that before he found sexual-orientation change therapy in the 1990s, “I was so conflicted over unwanted same-sex attractions that I was suicidal and self-destructive.” He goes on, “Sexual-reorientation therapy saved my life. I was in my 30s; I only wish I’d found this kind of help as a teenager or young adult. It could have saved me years of heartbreak and confusion.”

The other side of the story would include reporting that Obama’s political proclamation in favor of outlawing sexual-orientation change therapy not only constitutes crass exploitation of the terrible suicide of a mixed-up young person named Joshua Alcorn but serves as an indictment of his Christian parents. Joshua was confused about his sexuality and had begun referring to himself as a girl, Leelah. The parents had tried to get help for the troubled 17-year-old before he committed suicide.

The implication of the Politico-style reporting on this topic is that being “homosexual and transgender” is a fact of life that cannot be changed. That’s false. But the media just can’t bring themselves to report the facts.

Politico says the parents in this case found religious therapists who “attempted to convert her [Leelah] back into a boy.” This, too, is false. The child was a boy. Politico calls him “a transgender girl,” another falsehood.

In essence, Obama is proposing to ban parents, on a national basis, from seeking help for their children when they go through confusing times or have sexual problems. This is the totalitarian mind-set of the gay rights movement and its supporters.

This is not just a discussion about media bias. It’s important we understand what’s happening here. Obama’s statement, delivered by Valerie Jarrett on his behalf, is a declaration of war on parents, especially Christian parents who object to the government sanctioning and promoting homosexuality as another “lifestyle.”

From Obama’s perspective, these parents stand in the way of creating an army of “LGBT” young people who will forever be grateful to the President for standing up for their “rights.” Like the dope smokers in Colorado, participating in what Obama calls an “experiment,” these young people constitute another Democratic Party constituency. Obama doesn’t seem concerned, however, about the consequences of their immoral behavior. After all, he was a heavy dope smoker and look what happened to him and where he ended up.

Although Obama’s statement on human sexuality was “not accompanied by any concrete statements of policy,” as Politico put it, two states, California and New Jersey, as well as the District of Columbia, have banned parents from having a role in raising their children in this area of human sexuality. Politico seems to be begging the President to introduce national legislation to put parents in their place. Perhaps that’s the next step.

Like the editors at Politico, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY) also seems to think Obama knows best. Nadler issued a statement declaring, “I believe that licensed mental health professionals should be prohibited from engaging in these deceptive and damaging practices.” So the politicians, including Obama, are going to decide what constitutes “mental health.” This is reminiscent of the approach taken by the USSR’s psychiatric hospitals. Perhaps political dissidents on the issue of homosexuality in the United States will be assigned to the kind of mental hospitals the communists ran in the old Soviet Union.

In other words, a form of “conversion therapy” will be retained, but used on those who resist the homosexual movement’s demands for our children. Believers in the old-fashioned values of one man and one woman marriage will be “re-educated,” or else.

Citing Obama’s declaration on the correct state of mental health, Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared, “Our fight for LGBT equality has just received a major boost.” This well-funded leftist group is using the legal system to terrorize groups like JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) from helping homosexuals escape the behavior that puts their mental and physical health in danger.

Cohen declared, “While President Obama has done the nation a great service by speaking out, he hasn’t yet introduced any new policy initiatives. That’s why our work is so important. We’re going to trial [against JONAH] in New Jersey this summer, and we’ll continue doing everything we can to stop the destructive use of conversion therapy across the country.”

JONAH, with the help of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, is fighting back and has affirmed, “We continue our defense of the right of individuals to freely choose the help they believe will allow them to live their lives consistent with their personal and religious beliefs.”

As I noted in a recent column, a legal brief before the Supreme Court in a same-sex marriage case argues that a ruling against traditional values could result in websites offering information about withdrawing from homosexual behavior being outlawed as “hate speech.”

Not only are the rights to freedom of the press and religion now at risk, parental rights are also in jeopardy. We are now seeing Obama and the progressives, including the homosexual movement, making a raw power grab for our kids. The parents are being labeled as the lunatics.

Yet while the Obama administration opposes counseling for young people who may want to change their sexual feelings from homosexual to heterosexual, they have no problem paying for traitor Bradley Manning to physically “change” from being a “he” to a “she.” It is reported that the Army has agreed to pay for hormone treatments, makeup, and female underwear for Manning, who is serving a 35-year sentence for espionage and other charges, so he can become “Chelsea.”

Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America is getting downright weird. It appears to be a one-way street away from our Judeo-Christian values. Like so many other policies pursued by this President, it’s difficult to see how this one can do anything but weaken the United States.

04/10/15

First Amendment Rights at Stake in Gay Marriage Case

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

With media coverage slanted in favor of gay marriage by a five-to-one ratio, it’s unlikely that the legal documents being filed before the Supreme Court in favor of a traditional one man and one woman marriage will ever be covered in an objective fashion.

Yet, some of the legal briefs carry ominous warnings about what could happen to the American system of democratic self-government and its Christian heritage if the Supreme Court unilaterally decides to impose same-sex marriage on the states. They also warn about freedom of the press and religion being threatened by a powerful pro-homosexual movement that requires obedience to its desires and demands.

The court will hear arguments on April 28 and rule in June.

A powerful brief filed by the firm of William J. Olson, P.C., Attorneys at Law, and the U.S. Justice Foundation cites the late conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans in his book The Theme of Freedom as saying that homosexuality constitutes “a reversion to pagan ways of thinking,” and that putting the United States on the road to paganism could lead to a government “with totalitarian powers.”

Examining the nature of the homosexual movement and where it is driving the nation, the legal brief notes that sexual categories once limited to heterosexual and homosexual have now been expanded to include more than 50 gender options, as defined by Facebook, and that “some consider pedophilia to be a legitimate sexual orientation, returning us to the pagan pederasty of ancient Greece.”

With the court affirming same-sex marriage as a constitutional right, the lawyers see the culture sliding further into debauchery. “Television no doubt will become even more pro-homosexual,” the attorneys argue, “making it more difficult for persons adhering to traditional values to live their lives and raise their children in an increasingly debased culture.”

“In this brave, new, homosexual-friendly world,” they go on, “every licensed professional would be required to embrace the new orthodoxy, to bow down to the idol of ‘non-discrimination,’ or be cast out of his profession. People who first claimed only to want tolerance of their behavior will allow no toleration for other views.”

The Olson brief says a Court decision in violation of America’s founding principles could directly affect the free press rights of those offering information about withdrawing from homosexual behavior. Websites offering such counseling could be outlawed as “hate speech,” the legal document says.

“In California,” the document notes, “it is already a crime” to counsel minors that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation. It says New Jersey passed a similar statute, which was recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. This statute was signed into law by New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie.

“Newspapers likely will be forced to publish homosexual wedding announcements, in violation of their existing editorial control over what they publish,” the attorneys assert.

A decision in favor of same-sex marriage could also result in Christians being “driven from public office” for objecting to participation in gay marriage ceremonies, the brief says.

The Olson firm and the U.S. Justice Foundation filed the brief on behalf of Public Advocate of the U.S., Joyce Meyer Ministries, U.S. Justice Foundation, The Lincoln Institute, Abraham Lincoln Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Pastor Chuck Baldwin.

The brief says that a constitutional right to homosexual marriage could supersede the religious freedom of churches, ministries, Christian schools and colleges, and that these entities “would be placed in jeopardy of losing their federal tax-exempt status.” The loss of federal income tax-exempt status “could lead to loss of contribution income, and forfeiting of church properties to pro-homosexual charities,” the brief says. In addition, it goes on, “criminal penalties might be imposed on church leaders. In Idaho, two pastors recently were threatened with fines and jail time unless they performed homosexual marriages at their wedding chapel.”

In addition to the threat posed to the First Amendment rights of a free press and religious expression, the conservative public interest law firm Judicial Watch has filed a brief noting that the will of the American people through the voting process has already been subverted by liberal judges.

The group points out that “most of the States where the traditional definition of marriage has been changed has been done through judicial actions and not the will of the people. And in fact, several States including California and Virginia where the voters clearly desired to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, state administrators and federal courts denied their collective voices.”

“The right to vote is clearly defined in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution,” Judicial Watch points out. Yet, courts have declared through “judicial fiat” that “the millions of voters who democratically adopted the marriage amendments were wrong,” thereby abridging “the right to vote of each and every one of those citizens.”

The brief goes on to say that “The message sent to these citizens is that, despite engaging in the democratic process and debate regarding issues predominately within the state sphere and casting their constitutionally protected votes, when a federal court decides it knows better, their votes will mean nothing. The inevitable consequence of this type of federal interference will be voter disenfranchisement. How can we beat the patriotic drum of voter involvement when the ultimate end can be erased by a few federal judges?”

The Olson brief also takes up the theme of the American people being denied their say in these matters, noting cases of judges who “have treated challenges to traditional marriage as an opportunity to exercise raw political power…”

Inevitably, the lawyers warn, the nation could witness the legalization of multiple-partner and incestuous marriages.

03/20/15

FEMA: One More Obama Scandal for the Media to Obscure

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Why is it that the media almost always want to distance President Obama from the various scandals occurring during his presidency? It is as if he has nothing to do with the people he has appointed to run the various federal agencies, and no responsibility for their incompetence or corruption. Here is but the latest example:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is reviewing insurance claims for 144,000 New York and New Jersey victims of Superstorm Sandy. The storm, which was actually Hurricane Sandy, hit the U.S. coast near Atlantic City, New Jersey, on October 29, 2012. This FEMA review was prompted by lawsuits, an ongoing criminal inquiry, and news reporting that exposed the systematic, corrupt low-balling of homeowners by insurance companies working with FEMA. “They [FEMA] probably orchestrated the whole thing,” one victim, Doug Quinn, told CBS News. “A Sandy task force is being formed to evaluate the nation’s flood insurance program,” it reports.

The media would likely have treated this as a front-page scandal under George W. Bush’s leadership.

Relegating this news to page A25, The New York Times, on March 12, reported that insurance and engineering firms “have noted that there is little financial incentive to cheat.” In fact, “the money that is paid out ultimately comes from FEMA, not the insurance companies,” wrote David W. Chen, and the “flood insurance program…penalizes insurers for overpaying claims but not for underpaying them.”

Deborah Ramey and her husband Robert Kaible lost the home they rented out in Long Beach, NY due to Superstorm Sandy’s sand and floodwater damage. Although the house was valued at $205,000, they were offered just $60,000 for it before it was demolished because the insurance company concluded that long-term forces had caused the damage, not the storm.

However, when the insurer “agreed to send an engineer to take another look,” it made the mistake of sending out the same engineer who wrote the original report, according to Catherine Dunn of the International Business Times. That engineer had originally concluded that Superstorm Sandy, not long-term deterioration, was responsible for the destruction.

The engineer, George Hernemar, allowed Kaible to take cell phone photos of portions of his original, undoctored report in order to confront the insurer. In the end, they received just $79,000, demolished the house and sold it at a loss. The couple’s plea for relief from the courts is one of about 2,000 such lawsuits.

Steve Mostyn, who represents the couple, obtained a sample of 250 engineering reports from one such engineering firm, U.S. Forensic, and claims that all but two reports were identical, according to Dunn. Mostyn told “60 Minutes” that he began looking for a common denominator in the reports to understand why nearly all of the engineering companies’ reports were exactly the same. “And in this case, all of those companies are overseen by FEMA…” added CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. “More than 5 million homeowners living in designated flood zones all around the country are required to buy flood insurance policies backed by FEMA and taxpayer money.”

When “60 Minutes” covered this unfolding debacle earlier this month, it demonstrated the show’s best strengths and greatest weakness. In its damning investigative story about how insurance companies and the government conspired—or at least joined together—to deceive and abuse their clients, CBS also couldn’t help itself. It, like other news organizations, chose to politicize the story by conspicuously leaving out any mention of politics or administration accountability.

Alfonsi, the “60 Minutes” reporter, spoke with FEMA’s Brad Kieserman, the Deputy Associate Administrator for Insurance, who had been on the job for about three weeks at the time he was interviewed. In that time, Kieserman had uncovered fraudulent activity, warning signs reaching back to 2013, and said he referred the issue to the Inspector General. Now, the Times reports, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program head David Miller has resigned and a top deputy has retired.

The media are apparently not interested in looking any higher than mid-level management for accountability. As with so many other instances, such as the IRS and Veterans Affairs scandals, the media prefer to minimize the fallout for the Obama administration. Both the “60 Minutes” broadcast, and The New York Times fail to mention President Obama, current Department of Homeland Security (which FEMA is under) Secretary Jeh Johnson, former Secretary Janet Napolitano, or the administration in general.

This constitutes a deliberate omission by these news outlets. Such hypocritical reporting also serves to shelter the administration from the type of shellacking meted out to President Bush over Hurricane Katrina.

“So I want to repeat—my message to the federal government: No bureaucracy, no red tape. Get resources where they’re needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible, and for the duration [of Sandy],” said President Obama on October 30, 2012, in the midst of his reelection campaign.

Even National Public Radio is blasting FEMA’s actions toward Sandy victims, reporting this week that “In fact, FEMA’s appeals process almost never works in favor of homeowners. According to interviews with insurance insiders, FEMA’s appeals process is a ‘joke’ and ‘rigged’ in favor of insurance companies.” And just like CBS’s “60 Minutes,” NPR never mentions a word about President Obama, or Jeh Johnson. Instead, it’s just this faceless bureaucracy, FEMA, that is to blame.

FEMA, along with the IRS, Veterans Affairs and the Secret Service, are all agencies run by political appointees of President Obama, but no one in the media seems to want to hold the President or his appointees responsible. Why? They’ve spent nearly eight years covering for him. They’re certainly not going to stop now.

03/7/15

White House Takes Out Two Democrat Critics of its Insane Iran Deal in One Week: Hillary and Menendez

Doug Ross @ Journal

It would appear that the Obama back office is far more competent than its front office.

Lee Smith asks a logical question: “We’ve Known About Hillary’s Email for Years. Why the Hoopla This Week?“

…the public first became aware that Clinton was using her personal email two years ago, in March 2013, when a Romanian Internet activist using the nickname Guccifer hacked into Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account and uncovered a trove of work emails between the two from and to her personal account…

So, why did it take the Obama Administration two years to admit to what was already known and to then suggest that Clinton’s behavior was reckless and may have even been criminal? And why did it take so long for a major news organization like the New York Times to come up with the big “scoop” it published earlier this week?

Or to put the question another way, why did Hillary Clinton become the Obama Administration’s bête noire this very week, the same one during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled all of the world’s focus onto the issue of the administration’s negotiations with Iran?

The answer is that the two are related: This week’s tarring of Hillary Clinton is part of the White House’s political campaign to shut off debate about its hoped-for deal. It’s not hard to see why they’re anxious. With Netanyahu’s speech forcing lawmakers and editorial writers to face up to the proposed agreement’s manifest problems, the administration fears the prospect of Democrats jumping ship and signing on to Kirk-Menendez sanctions legislation that also would give Congress oversight on the deal. So far, the White House has managed to keep Democratic lawmakers in line, no matter how much they seem to question the wisdom of the proposed deal. Hillary Clinton, gearing up for a 2016 run in which she is likely to put some distance between herself and Obama’s dubious Middle East policies, is the one major national Democratic figure who can give Democrats in Congress cover.

Did someone say “Menendez“?

Via CNN:

The Justice Department is preparing to bring criminal corruption charges against New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, alleging he used his Senate office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend in exchange for gifts.

People briefed on the case say Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors’ request to proceed with charges, CNN has learned exclusively.

Back in January, Sen. Menendez made headlines for blasting the Obama administration’s handling of the Middle East, saying that the White House sounds as if their talking points “come straight out of Tehran.”

The “timing” was noticed:

Let’s see. The DOJ has ignored a series of egregious felonies committed by Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Steven Miller, Lisa Jackson, and a host of others.

Why then, would it now attack Robert Menendez, Democrat Senator from New Jersey?

Well, just four days ago, the National Journal reported that “At AIPAC, Sen. Menendez Goes Head-to-Head With the Obama Administration on Iran”</strong>.

March 2, 2015 Sen. Bob Menendez takes joy in being on the wrong side of Tehran, and he’s not afraid of being at odds with his own party’s White House.

“When it comes to defending the U.S.-Israel relationship, I am not intimidated by anyone—not Israel’s political enemies and not by my political friends when I believe they’re wrong,” Menendez declared to an energized crowd at the AIPAC policy conference Monday evening… A call to action for his fellow members of Congress, Menendez vowed never to back down from a brawl to defend the U.S. and Israel’s “sacrosanct” and “untouchable” relationship.

Menendez’s speech marked a crescendo in a long and—at times—tense relationship with the Obama administration. As the White House seeks to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, Menendez has been the leading Democrat questioning the process. While President Obama has demanded cooperation from Congress, the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat sponsored legislation in December that aimed to bog Iran down with more economic sanctions. His intent was to put more pressure on the country to cooperate with the United States, but the White House claimed it undermined its months-long discussions.

Gee, but I’m sure all of these revelations and criminal charges are just a coincidence.

Hat tip: BadBlue News.

02/4/15

Media Bias Rears Ugly Head in Vaccine Controversy

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The media think they have discovered another issue to beat Republicans over the heads with—vaccines. But the media have no credibility on this, or any other major health issue. They do have, and often demonstrate, a partisan political bias on such controversial matters.

“Vaccination debate flares in GOP presidential race, alarming medical experts,” states The Washington Post in horror.

It’s yet another attempt to portray Republicans as “anti-science.” This follows the “climate change denier” mantra used against conservatives and Republicans for supporting pro-growth economic policies.

In the measles case, NBC news is attacking Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky for “giving credence” to an idea—“disputed by the majority of the scientific community”—that “vaccination can lead to mental disabilities.”

That’s interesting. As we reported back in 2006, NBC was aggressively covering the mercury-autism link involving vaccines. That was because Bob Wright, Vice Chairman and Executive Officer of GE and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NBC Universal, had a grandson who was autistic.

Going further back in time, consider a program on the link between vaccines and mental problems which was aired by NBC in 1994 and featured Katie Couric as a co-host.

If there are no problems associated with vaccines, then why did Congress pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which created a national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?

Michael Chen of ABC 10 News in San Diego reports on one mother whose son suffered a very serious vaccine reaction and was diagnosed with autism, and later Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mitochondrial dysfunction. She was awarded $55,000 in damages. Chen reported that since 1988, 15,684 injury and death claims related to vaccines have been submitted to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and that among those, nearly 4,000 cases received compensation from a federal fund.

Nearly $2 billion dollars has been paid out to vaccine victims for their injuries.

But in response to New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie supporting parental choice in vaccines, CNN ran a story saying he had sidestepped “vaccine science.”

The Washington Post reported in 2008 that candidate Barack Obama had said, “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.”

The phrase “This person included” was apparently a reference to someone in the audience.

Now Obama acts as if all the science is settled. It is total hypocrisy.

But the science is not settled. In regard to the measles outbreak, Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center points out that “there were 644 cases of measles reported in America in 2014, even though 95% of children entering kindergarten have gotten two doses of MMR vaccine, which is also true for 92% of school children ages 13 to 17 years.” She also notes that “less than one percent of children under age three are completely unvaccinated and 92% of them have gotten one or more MMR shots. In some states, the MMR vaccination rate is approaching 100 percent.”

“From January 1 to January 30, 2015, 102 people from 14 states were reported to have measles,” the CDC reports.

Fisher notes that the “measles virus has not been eradicated from the U.S., just like measles has not been eradicated from any other country and emerging scientific evidence suggests it never will be—no matter how many doses of MMR vaccine are mandated for every man, woman and child in the world.”

Could it be possible that the shots aren’t working? What about the fact that millions of Americans took flu shots that don’t work? Did you miss this ABC News story: “Flu vaccine may not be effective for this year’s strains, CDC says.”

Dr. Anne Schuchat, assistant surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was quoted by CNN as saying, “this is not a problem with the measles vaccine not working. This is a problem of the measles vaccine not being used.”

So why are vaccinated people getting measles? The CDC admits that 12 percent of those with measles associated with Disneyland were vaccinated. What’s more, some of the measles cases may be vaccine reactions. The fact is that the CDC just doesn’t know why or what is happening.

CNN, which is now trying to act “scientific” on the subject of vaccine safety, ran a January 15 column, “The climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?” It was another effort to scare people over so-called global warming, or climate change.

Here, too, Republicans have been portrayed as “anti-science” for opposing scare mongering over the climate, based on junk science.

In this case, the editor’s note said the author, David Ray Griffin, “is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. His most recent book is Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.”

That sounds impressive.

Yet, his previous book was, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. It argues that Flight 77, a Boeing 757 which was seen by dozens of people crashing into the Pentagon, was actually a missile or small aircraft.

He has no explanation for passenger Barbara Olson’s call to her husband, Ted Olson, in the Justice Department, alerting him to the fact that the flight had been hijacked, other than to suggest that they were both part of a secret plan to conceal the truth and that it is not clear “what became of Barbara Olson.”

Griffin is an advocate of global government that he calls “global democracy” as the solution to the world’s problems.

According to the acknowledgements section of his new book, the “seed” for the book was a series of lectures he gave at the invitation of Zhihe Wang and Meijun Fan of the Communist Chinese Institute for Postmodern Development. Their specialty is “ecological Marxism.”

Not surprisingly, the book, Organic Marxism: An Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe, receives Griffin’s endorsement.

In a hastily added postscript to his own book, Griffin seems ecstatic that President Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently made an “executive agreement” about limiting carbon emissions. He says this “undercuts what had become the Republicans’ main argument for doing nothing about climate change…”

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is not impressed by the deal. He calls it “a non-binding charade” that benefits China.

Griffin calls the GOP “the party of denial”—a charge the media will increasingly use as the presidential campaign moves forward.

The Republicans ought to be getting used to this charge by now.

But using a 9/11 truther to attack Republicans? Don’t the media have any decency?

Will Republicans stand up to the media attack? Or will they wilt in the face of dubious “science” promoted by reporters with no credibility?