07/15/15

Invasion USA

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

The Red Green Axis

Investigative journalist Jim Simpson discusses the invasion of the USA through illegal and legal immigration, via Mexico and the Middle East. However, Christians are NOT part of this wave of immigrants from the Middle East. Simpson is the author of the new book, The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America, available for only $2.99 as a Kindle edition through Amazon.com He also addresses the problem of Sanctuary Cities. He says Catholic Charities, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and its grant-making arm, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, are prominent elements of the open borders/amnesty/sanctuary city movement. This unlimited legal and immigration are going to mean the end of America as we know it.

07/11/15

Trump Was Right

By: James Simpson
Accuracy in Media

Donald Trump has been roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for saying that 80 percent of women crossing the border are being raped. NBC decided to drop his popular show, “The Apprentice,” and the Miss Universe pageant he produces. Mexico says it will withdraw its entrant to the pageant based on Trump’s offensive statements. ESPN, NASCAR and others have piled on. But Trump was just quoting an article from Fusion magazine. The piece, “Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream?,” leads off by saying:

“Before they can reach the American Dream, many migrant women have to survive a Mexican nightmare. A staggering 80 percent of Central American girls and women crossing Mexico en route to the United States are raped along the way, according to directors of migrant shelters interviewed by Fusion.”

In fact, the problem is infinitely worse than the article reveals. For example, of 61,529 criminal cases initiated by federal prosecutors in 2013, 24,746fully 40 percent of the totaloriginated in five border jurisdictions in Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, West Texas and South Texas. Almost all were committed by illegals.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its 2011 report, Criminal Alien Statistics, included a review of 249,000 criminal aliens. They were arrested a total of 1.7 million times, an average of about seven arrests per alien. Among them they committed 2.9 million crimes. Roughly 50 percent were arrested at least once for either assault, homicide, robbery, sex crimes or kidnapping. Here are the eye-popping stats:

  • Homicide: 25,064 (8% of total)
  • Sex Offenses: 69,929 (12%)
  • Assault: 213,047 (35%)
  • Kidnapping: 14,788 (4%)

But this doesn’t provide any context. These crimes were committed over multiple years. It is obviously significant, but difficult to tell how these figures stack up to the total without reviewing all crimes committed during the measured period. And since the period involved was not defined, it becomes impossible. However, the following statistics will help put this situation in proper perspective.

The GAO studied a subset of five states with large illegal alien populations: New York, Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. At the time of the study, the latest data available were for 2008. In New York, 28 percent of illegal alien convictions in 2008 were for murder. Another 11 percent were sex offenses. That sounds like a lot, but the GAO did not provide the numbers that generated those percentages, so a FOIA request was submitted.

The unpublished numbers provided by the GAO have been placed side-by-side against the total of each type of crime committed in each state in 2008 (total state numbers available here):

New York

Total Murders: 835. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,168 (140% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 2,775; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 459 (17% of total).

New York Illegal Alien Population: 2.9% of total

 

California

Total Murders: 2,143. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 2,859 (135% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 8,906; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 3,325 (37% of total)

California Illegal Alien Population: 7.3% of total

 

Texas

Total Murders: 1,373. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 934 (68% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 8,004; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 1,825 (23% of total)

Texas Illegal Alien Population: 6.8% of total

 

Arizona

Total Murders: 404. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 326 (81% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 1,654; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 391 (24% of total)

Arizona Illegal Alien Population: 5.2% of total

 

Florida

Total Murders: 1,169. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,762 (151% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 5,972; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 2,971 (50% of total)

Florida Illegal Alien Population: 3.7% of total

Consider these facts. While illegal aliens compose just 2.9% of New York’s population, (if Census figures are to be believed), more illegals were convicted of murder in 2008 than the total number of murders committed that year!

The reason convictions exceed state total crimes in some cases is because the convictions are for crimes that may not have been committed that year, but went to trial in 2008. However if total murders for the previous three years 2005 – 2007 are added up, the 2008 illegal alien convictions still account for an astronomical percentage:

  • New York, 45%
  • California, 40%
  • Texas, 22%
  • Arizona, 24%
  • Florida, 55%

 North Carolina has become a haven for illegals. Sex crimes committed by illegals against children in this state are off the charts. For example:

In North Carolina there were 752 arrests of illegals for sex crimes against children in 2014. Each illegal was arrested on an average of five charges, for a total of 3,695 charges! Statistics were not available for November 2014, so the actual number is doubtless higher.

For comparison purposes, in 2013, the latest data available, in all of North Carolina there was a total of 1,821 forceable rape cases—including of adults.

Despite this glaring issue, and the serious vote fraud problems in North Carolina, the newly elected GOP majority in the state just passed a law providing driver licenses to illegals. One must scratch deep to uncover something more irresponsible. Does the GOP have a death wish?

Should Trump be pilloried for pointing out an inconvenient fact? People are being killed and raped in epidemic numbers. Illegals are preying on our children! President Obama’s catch and release program for illegal aliens, including violent criminals, is directly responsible for 121 murders committed by illegal alien criminals released from jail under Obama between 2010 and 2014.

It is absolutely indisputable that San Francisco’s sanctuary policies contributed to the horrific, senseless, shooting death of 32-year-old Kate Steinle on July 2. Francisco Sanchez, the illegal alien who admitted killing her, has said that it was the city’s sanctuary policies that attracted him to that location. The city leaders have Kate’s blood on their hands. But that blood is a drop in the bucket compared to the outrages regularly being committed by the illegals among us, while politicians of both parties sing their praises.

By coddling illegals at the expense of Americans, President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson, as well as leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate and countless state and local politicians, are personally responsible for this violent crime wave.

This corrupt, self-serving political calculation—allowing criminal, illegal aliens to stay in this country despite federal law—cannot be tolerated. Trump should be praised for speaking out on this outrageous situation.

07/8/15

Illegal alien advocates: accessories to an epidemic of murder and child rape

By: James Simpson
DC Independent Examiner

And should be charged as criminal accomplices and dealt with accordingly. Does that sound outrageous? Sure it does, but withhold judgment until you read this post.

It is absolutely indisputable that San Francisco’s sanctuary policies contributed to the horrific, senseless, shooting death of 32-year-old Kate Steinle on July 2. Francisco Sanchez, the illegal alien who admitted killing her, has said that it was the city’s sanctuary policies that attracted him to it. City leaders have Kate’s blood on their hands. But that blood is a drop in the bucket compared to the outrages regularly being committed by the illegals among us, while politicians of both parties sing their praises.

Donald trump has been roundly criticized by both Democrats and Republicans for saying that 80 percent of women crossing the border are being raped. NBC decided to drop his popular show, The Apprentice, and the Miss Universe pageant he produces. Mexico says it will withdraw its entrant to the pageant based on Trump’s offensive statements. ESPN, NASCAR and others have piled on. But Trump was just quoting an article from Fusion magazine. The piece, “Is rape the price to pay for migrant women chasing the American Dream?” leads off by saying:

Before they can reach the American Dream, many migrant women have to survive a Mexican nightmare. A staggering 80 percent of Central American girls and women crossing Mexico en route to the United States are raped along the way, according to directors of migrant shelters interviewed by Fusion.

Could it be any clearer than that? Democrats have long since abandoned even a shred of honesty, but are Republicans again rebranding themselves as “The Party of Stupid?” How about “The Party of Insufferably Mindless Idiots?” Is that what they should be called, or maybe just the cowards, frauds and hypocrites they are?

In fact, the problem is infinitely worse than the article reveals. For example, almost half of all federal crimes committed in the United States in fiscal year 2013 were committed in a few districts along the Southwest Border with Mexico. Of 61,529 criminal cases initiated by federal prosecutors, 24,746 – fully 40 percent of the total – originated in five border jurisdictions in Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, Western Texas and Southern Texas. Almost all were committed by illegals.

Following are some statistics on illegal alien crime that were compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for its 2011 report, Criminal Alien Statistics. The GAO study included a review of 249,000 criminal aliens. They were arrested a total of 1.7 million times, an average of about 7 arrests per alien. Between them they committed 2.9 million crimes. About 50 percent were arrested at least once for either assault, homicide, robbery, sex crimes or kidnapping. Here are the eye-popping stats:

Homicide, 25,064 (8% of total), Sex Offenses 69,929 (12%), Assault 213,047, (35%), and Kidnapping, 14,788 (4%).

But this doesn’t give context. These crimes were committed over multiple years. It is obviously not insignificant, but is difficult to tell how it stacks up to the total without reviewing all crimes during the period. The following stats will put it in proper perspective.

GAO also studied a subset of five states with large illegal alien populations, New York, Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. At the time of the study, 2011, the latest data available were for 2008. In New York, 28 percent of illegal aliens convictions in 2008 were for murder. Another 11 percent was for sex offenses. Those sounded like a lot but GAO did not provide the numbers that generated those percentages, so a FOIA request was submitted. Following are the unpublished numbers provided by the GAO, placed side-by-side against the total of each type of crime committed in each state in 2008:

New York

Total Murders: 835. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,168 (140% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 2,775; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 459 (17% of total).

California

Total Murders: 2,143. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 2,859 (135% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 8,906; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 3,325 (37% of total)

Texas

Total Murders: 1,373. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 934 (68% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 8,004; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 1,825 (23% of total)

Arizona

Total Murders: 404. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 326 (81% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 1,654; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 391 (24% of total)

Florida

Total Murders: 1,169. Illegal Alien Murder Convictions: 1,762 (151% of total)

Total Sex Crimes: 5,972; Illegal Alien Sex Crimes: 2,971 (50% of total)

The reason convictions exceed state total crimes for the year in some cases is because convictions are for crimes that may not have been committed that year but went to trial in 2008. However if total murders for the previous three years 2005 – 2007 are added up, the 2008 illegal alien convictions are still astronomical:

New York, 45%; California, 40%; Texas, 22%; Arizona, 24%; Florida, 55%.

North Carolina is a haven for illegals for some reason. Sex crimes committed by illegals against children in NC are off the charts. For example:

In North Carolina there were 752 arrests of illegals for sex crimes against children in 2014. Each illegal was arrested on an average of five charges, for a total of 3,695! Statistics were not available for November 2014, so the actual number is doubtless higher.

Despite this glaring issue, and the serious vote fraud problems in NC, the newly elected GOP majority in the state just passed a law providing driver licenses to illegals. One must scratch deep to uncover something more idiotic and irresponsible. Such stupidity will insure NC’s GOP majority is short-lived. Does the GOP have a death wish?

People are being killed, and raped in epidemic numbers. Illegals are praying on our children! President Obama’s catch and release program for illegal aliens, including violent criminals, is directly responsible for 121 murders committed by illegal alien criminals released from jail under Obama.

What kind of insanity allows this to continue? By coddling illegals at the expense of Americans, President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson and all the other self-serving parasites in this unbearable, destructive cabal, as well as leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate, and countless state and local politicians (Martin O’Malley can you hear me?) are personally responsible for this violent crime wave. They have blood on their hands and should be criminally charged as accessories to rape and murder.

06/9/15

The important message sent by the depraved crimes depicted in Game of Thrones and Outlander

Doug Ross @ Journal

The last couple of weeks on cable television’s most popular shows have featured a smorgasbord of stunning violence.

Heiress to Winterfell Lady Sansa Stark is brutally raped on her wedding night by the psycopathic Ramsay Bolton.

Preteen Princess Shireen is lashed to a stake and burned alive — by her father, Stannis Baratheon.

Highlander Jamie Fraser is viciously tortured and then raped by Captain “Black” Jack Randall.

The outcry from each fictionalized incident was as predictable as it was pathetic.

Not because the depictions weren’t shocking and cruel: they were.

Because true outrage should be reserved for the very real, very depraved actions that are occurring not in some mythical setting but on our planet, now.

In today’s Middle East, crimes against humanity are occurring on a daily basis with nary a murmur from Hollywood, the Democrat establishment, the feminists or the progressive movement.

In the ongoing Muslim civil war, children are crucified on a regular basis.

Girls as young as eight years old are routinely raped and sold as sex slaves in open markets.

Other children are buried alive or beheaded.

An estimated 30 million human beings around the world are currently living in slavery.

In its ongoing civil war, Syria employs chemical weapons on a routine basis. The death toll from the Syrian conflict alone is approaching a quarter of a million. Another four million Syrians have fled the warzone and are living as refugees.

The left may be capable of marshalling a Twitter campaign in a show of short-lived, faux outrage (remember last year’s #BringBackOurGirls?), but when it comes to real action they are AWOL.

So the faux outrage over Hollywood’s treatment of Sansa Stark and company rings hollow.

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

And for the left, fiction is more real than truth.

Related: Ameritopia.

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.

04/8/15

Journalistic Blindspots Exposed at Rolling Stone and Beyond

By: Bethany Stotts
Accuracy in Media

Biased journalists view the world locked into paradigms dominated by their own preconceptions. Often, they and their editors select stories designed to confirm those narratives at the expense of the facts. This is pure punditry masked as reporting.

Take Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “A Rape on Campus,” for example. The Rolling Stone magazine writer approached a former rape victim working at the University of Virginia “searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show ‘what it’s like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,’” according to Erdely’s notes of her now-retracted story, which were obtained during an independent but solicited investigation by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

In other words, Erdely had decided that rape was occurring at these schools, that it was a pervasive cultural problem, and that it was her business to dramatize her preconceived narrative about this contentious subject. “As much casting director as journalist, she was looking for a single character with an emblematic story that would speak to—in her words—the ‘pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture’ on college campuses,” writes Jonathan Mahler of The New York Times.

“By the time Rolling Stone‘s editors assigned an article on campus sexual assault to Erdely in the spring of 2014, high-profile rape cases at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Vanderbilt and Florida State had been in the headlines for months,” states the Columbia School report.

Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana appears to have come to the story with the same preconceptions.

“‘My original idea,’ Dana said, was ‘to look at one of these cases and have the story be more about the process of what happens when an assault is reported and the sort of issues it brings up,’” states the report.

The authors of that report called Erdely’s tactics what they were: “confirmation bias.” Mahler reports that Rolling Stone suffered from a “lack of skepticism.”

But those two phenomena are just symptoms of the underlying problem in journalism: the pursuit of a liberal political agenda. “Like ‘A Rape on Campus,’ [the Duke lacrosse rape allegations] was a story that seemed to conform to a lot of the public’s worst ideas about the behavior of privileged young men at elite colleges,” writes Mahler.

Even MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews questioned back in December whether this story would end up just like coverage of the Duke lacrosse players.

Erdely and the editors at Rolling Stone consistently ignored suspicious behavior by their source, such as her fantastic recall of details of the event itself, yet apparent unwillingness to corroborate key facts through additional people. Even her mother wouldn’t talk to them. “She also said that her mother would be willing to talk to Erdely, but the reporter said that when she called and left messages several times, the mother did not respond,” states the report. Jackie’s contact was sporadic, and she would stop responding for periods of time.

“Yet Rolling Stone‘s senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the story’s failure does not require them to change their editorial systems,” states the report. And yes, Erdely will continue with her work there. “Sabrina’s done great work for us over the years and we expect that to continue,” Dana told The Washington Post.

“Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience,” writes Erdely in her public apology. “I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone’s readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the U.V.A. community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.”

But, as Warner Todd Huston notes for Breitbart, members of Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity which Erdely and Rolling Stone maligned, are not mentioned in her apology. Maybe they are just part of the “U.V.A. community” and don’t deserve special mention. To be fair, however, they are mentioned in Dana’s apology in the editor’s note that introduces the report.

Of course, the fraternity has also announced it will sue Rolling Stone because of this story, stating that it suffered “130 days of living under a cloud of suspicion as a result of reckless reporting by Rolling Stone Magazine,” according to The Washington Post.

Rolling Stone is a biased publication pursuing a political agenda, no doubt about it. Yet The New York Times itself is no stranger to similar problematic reporting.

AIM reported at length how the Times’ Matthew S. Schmidt based an entire news report covering Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi emails on anonymous administration sources who failed to provide him or the Times with the text of the emails for verification. Such reporting opens the Times to the possibility of the same type of errors as were made in covering Jackie’s story—the inability to corroborate basic facts and perform a paper’s journalistic duties to the public. All papers, not just Rolling Stone, should consider “A Rape on Campus” a much needed caution against this type of biased news.

04/6/15

BS Grows Fat on the Rolling Stone

By: Frank Salvato

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has issued a 12,866 word report that literally shreds Rolling Stone magazine, convicting the publication and its employees of gross negligence and ethical malfeasance in the publishing of a story that falsely accused the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity members at the University of Virginia of gang-raping a freshman coed. Yet, no one at the magazine will lose their job, not the editors or the reporter. Evidently it’s a good time to be a Progressive media hack in the United States.

The Washington Times reports:

“In a stinging report released Sunday evening, an independent review by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said the magazine was reckless in vetting its sources, including the purported victim, identified only as ‘Jackie,’ and neglected ‘basic, even routine journalistic practice.’

“Rolling Stone Managing Editor, Will Dana,…said the publication was ‘committing ourselves to a series of recommendations about journalistic practices that are spelled out in the report’…However, he spelled out no consequences for any staff members involved.”

Well, isn’t that special. They’ll try to do better. And we’re supposed to believe that in the smear-merchant industry that is today’s magazine media Rolling Stone is suddenly going to transform from a publication whose genesis was high times and Hunter S. Thompson into a 2015 interpretation of the 1950s Wall Street Journal. Don’t hold your breath.

Liberal offerings like Rolling Stone are great for entertainment reading, but they aren’t serious news magazines; they aren’t balanced in their reporting or the injected opinion pieces, and they do not prompt any critical thinking for their readers. They publish narratives most often based in pure ideology and let the facts fall where they may. This is not news reporting or traditional journalism in any fashion of the imagination.

Today’s magazine journalism – and increasingly newspaper and television journalism – is activist journalism; journalism meant to persuade the consumer to a specific point of view or ideological affection, often not providing the total of the story and/or cherry-picking sources to craft a narrative sympathetic to achieving the ideological goals held by the author and the publication. Such is the case with Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Rolling Stone magazine.

Isn’t it time that we – as a people; as a society – recognize that we should not be gleaning our news information from entertainment publications and programs? Rolling Stone was originally a magazine glorifying the 60s drug culture. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were both comedy shows. Late night talk show monologues are jokes crafted on current events meant to be entertaining and witty, not journalistic missives crafted to educate the public on the facts surrounding news events. One has to question when the transition was made that allowed comedians and the drug culture the arbiters of truth.

In Rolling Stone’s refusal to fire all involved in this public deception – this ideological manipulation of the people, they have relegated themselves to the lowest rung of the tabloid sphere. In fact, the warped cynicism of Mad Magazine now has more ethos than Rolling Stone. And the need for serious news outlets remains…and that’s no laughing matter.

Frank Salvato is the Executive Director of BasicsProject.org a grassroots, non-partisan, research and education initiative focusing on Constitutional Literacy, and internal and external threats facing Western Civilization. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His opinion and analysis have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, The Jewish World Review, Accuracy in Media, Human Events, Townhall.com and are syndicated nationally. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel, and is the author of six books examining Islamofascism and Progressivism, including “Understanding the Threat of Radical Islam”. Mr. Salvato’s personal writing can be found at FrankJSalvato.com.

02/12/15

Of Double Standards and Triple Homicides: Media Malpractice and the North Carolina Murders

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

On the night of Sept. 11, 2011, three men were brutally murdered in Waltham, Massachusetts — their throats slashed and bodies covered in marijuana.

Despite the gruesome nature of the crime, which one investigator described as “the worst bloodbath” he had ever seen, the national media would have never reported on this story, let alone identified the Jewish religion of at least two of the slain, had Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Muslim and close friend of the third victim, not carried out the Boston bombing.

In fact, in spite of Tsarnaev’s ties to the victims of these yet unsolved murders, to this day articles almost specifically de-emphasize the date of the crime, the fact that as the same investigator described it, the victims’ wounds were akin to those of “an Al-Qaeda training video,” and the religion of the slain.

Contrast this story with the horrific news that three Muslims were murdered execution style in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Suzanne Askar, right, rests her head on the shoulder of Safam Mahate, a student at North Carolina State University, as they stand next to Nida Allam, far left, during a vigil for three people who were killed at a condominium near UNC-Chapel Hill, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Craig Stephen Hicks appeared in court on charges of first-degree murder in the Tuesday deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Al Drago)

Suzanne Askar, right, rests her head on the shoulder of Safam Mahate, a student at North Carolina State University, as they stand next to Nida Allam, far left, during a vigil for three people who were killed at a condominium near UNC-Chapel Hill, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, in Chapel Hill, N.C. Craig Stephen Hicks appeared in court on charges of first-degree murder in the Tuesday deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Al Drago)

Unlike in the Waltham triple homicide, this story was explicitly reported as I just laid it out – a man killed three Muslims – a man, mind you, who many reports neglected to note is a militantly anti-religious atheist progressive.

In spite of the fact that stories ran across practically every major publication, with articles from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal referring to a triple murder of Muslims, social media exploded, with individuals appalled that the crime was somehow being ignored.

The #MuslimLivesMatter hashtag, adopted from the #blacklivesmatter hashtag created in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases went viral, signaling presumably that people believe atrocities are being carried out against Muslims en masse.

The juxtaposition of these two stories is instructive when it comes to today’s media.

While we might excuse the media in the case of the Waltham homicide for originally ignoring the date, nature of murder and religious identity of the victims, given their involvement with marijuana and law enforcement’s original public hypothesis that the murder was drug related, it is telling that these facts continue to be largely ignored in coverage of the murders.

Conversely, in the case of the Chapel Hill murders, religion was explicitly injected into the story from the start, leading many readers naturally to ascribe an anti-Muslim motive to the triple homicide. Meanwhile, local police believe the murders stemmed from an altercation over a parking space.

It is ironic that in the wake of President Barack Obama’s remarks about a “random” attack by a Muslim terrorist on a Kosher supermarket — note that the White House will not call it a jihadist attack on Jews — in the case of the victims in North Carolina, again from the start they were identified as Muslims. Randomness is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

French police officers storm a kosher grocery to end a hostage situation, Paris, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. Explosions and gunshots were heard as police forces stormed a kosher grocery in Paris where a gunman was holding at least five people hostage. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

French police officers storm a kosher grocery to end a hostage situation, Paris, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. Explosions and gunshots were heard as police forces stormed a kosher grocery in Paris where a gunman was holding at least five people hostage. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

In any event, can you think of another case where the media identified the victim(s) by religion?

Can you think of another case where the media identified the victimizer(s) by religion?

In recent instances of Muslim crimes against non-Muslims, whether an axe attack on New York Police Department officers in New York, a beheading in Oklahoma, or the systemic rape and abuse in Rotherham, almost universally the media initially and often ultimately excludes details about the Muslim identity of the attackers.

Instead we are left with euphemisms for the perpetrators, such as that they are “North African” or “Asian.”

In the case of the Middle East, where Western media reports are notoriously anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish, we get stories about Israelis killing two Arabs in a mosque, only later to include the minor detail that these two Arab terrorists were killed in an act of self defense, and then only after they terrorists had murdered five Jews in a synagogue.

One case among all others perhaps best illustrates the media’s unwillingness to put truth above narrative. In one of the most egregious and egregiously neglected stories of all, as we reported last year, Anders Breivik — the Nordic terrorist responsible for killing 77 people and injuring 319 more in a July 2011 rampage in Sweden — by his own admission committed a false-flag attack meant to discredit the counterjihadists and Zionists with whom he claimed allegiance. To this day, almost no others outlets have reported on this.

While journalists should not be selecting and/or framing stories to fit their own worldview to begin with, it would be one thing if these narratives had some basis in fact. But frequently, the evidence directly contradicts the story that the media would like to paint.

In America, according to the most recently available FBI hate crime statistics, it is Jews, not Muslims, who are the most discriminated against of all religious minorities, disproportionately targeted in a staggering 60 percent of all religion-based hate crimes, a rate four times as high as that of Muslims.

In Europe, the Jewish population has continued to plummet precipitously, with Jews from France to Great Britain leaving as anti-Semitism and Islamic supremacism have increased, sentiments that are inherently interrelated.

In Israel, it suffices to say that were its enemies to lay down its arms tomorrow, there would be peace; if Israel were to lay down its arms tomorrow, it would be blown to pieces.

Keen watchers of the media will note that a similar pattern of narrative-setting in reporting occurs in the coverage, or lack thereof, of black-on-white or black-on-black versus white-on-black crimes, and/or cop-on-civilian versus civilian-on-cop killings.

To adopt an Orwell saying, when it comes to the media, some victim(s)/victimizer(s) are more equal than others.

Identity matters only insofar as it serves a political narrative.

These journalistic sins of omission and commission, used to craft a political message, are antithetical to the truth-seeking purpose of the profession.

With the special rights and protections granted to the press comes an obligation to soberly and objectively inform the citizenry.

Today in America, and throughout the West, this obligation is being disgracefully dishonored.

12/17/14

The Compassion of the Religion of Peace is Fatal

By: Richard Cameron
Blasted Fools

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One of the main issues that commenced my fallout with George W. Bush, was the incredible statement he made that “Islam is a religion of peace”. From that moment forward, I began to see the fiction of the ‘War On Terror’ in an entirely new light. There could be no war on terror if the ideology behind the terrorists was being redefined by the leader of the free world as something other than the vicious, hateful and divisive creed that it is.

It was my first, but not last clue that regards whatever war we were conducting –  defeating terror and opposing the foundational beliefs inspiring it, wasn’t the object of our mission. If the Koran and the other related commentaries of Islam were dictating attacks on infidels and we weren’t at war with it, just what were we at war with?

Later, our government stripped away all pretense of such a purpose, by mothballing the expression ‘War on Terror’ altogether.

It’s interesting to hear apologists for Islam claim that hateful behavior of Muslims is not mainstream, but only from radical groups that have “hijacked the faith”.  As a rationale for dismissing the likelihood that Islam contains within itself something inherently toxic, progressives will argue that the actions of certain individuals bombing abortion clinics, demonstrate that there are extremists in all religions.

The obvious problem with that argument is that if persons representing themselves as Christians committed even a tiny fraction of the number of barbaric acts that Muslims perpetrate, we would be inundated with reports of them in the mass media.

Islamic hate crimes are the statistical norm among the followers of that religion, whereas, sectarian crimes by Christians, Buddhists, Jews and Hindus are anomalies by comparison.

From Africa to Syria to Pakistan and Egypt and throughout the Islamic world, the conditions of fear and terror that Christians and other religious minorities live under on an hour to hour basis, defy imagination.

One can only read the testimonies of the survivors to begin to conceive of the atrocities committed by Islam’s faithful – and a full accounting of the thousands of such attacks would fill several volumes. What’s more, these would be in addition to the well publicized activities of the Islamic State.

According to one estimate, a Christian is martyred every five minutes. Of 50 countries where Christians are under attack, 42 have either a Muslim majority or have sizable Muslim populations. That would indicate to any reasonable observer that there is something in the Islamic ‘water’.

Most people have heard the accounts of school children in Nigeria abducted by the hundreds by the Islamic militant group Boko Haram. Garnering less publicity are the distressing accounts of ethnic cleansing being perpetrated by the group.

It was reported in August by Voice of the Martyrs that Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram beheaded a six-year-old boy on June 1 because he was a Christian. The attack occurred in Attagara, Gwoza district, Borno State – a predominately Christian community. Over 100 militants descended upon the village, slaughtering men, women, and children.

In this incident, a man named Sawaltha Wandala witnessed children being murdered on his way to church service. A six-year-old boy had been slashed and thrown into a ditch, but was alive. Wandala picked him up to carry him to a hospital in Cameroon, when he was confronted by a gang of terrorists. They took the child from Wandala, cut his head off then beat 55 year old Wandala and struck him over the head with a large stone, leaving him to die.

During another attack on Attagara, John Yakubu returned to his family’s home to gather their animals so his family wouldn’t starve in the refugee camp in Cameroon. He was spotted by Boko Haram members and taken captive.

“We know you’re John,” they said to him, according to Voice of the Martyrs. “You must convert to Islam or else you will die a painful death.” When Yakuba refused to denounce Christ, they tied his arms and legs to a tree, and hacked his hands with a knife.

“Can you become a Muslim now?” “You can kill my body, but not my soul,” Yakubu cried out. The men continued to cut his feet and back with a machete and knife to torture him. “We will show you.”  Yakuba’s head was slashed, and an axe was driven into his knee, reaching the bone. He lost consciousness and was left tied to the tree for three days before someone found him, after which he was taken to the hospital in a coma.

In another incident,  a teacher of a school for boys in Northeast Nigeria described the group’s killing of 29 young men. The militants locked the door of one dormitory where male students were sleeping and then set it ablaze, slitting the throats of those who tried to clamber out of windows and gunning down those who ran away, said teacher Adamu Garba.

Rape of Christian women and girls is widespread in Muslim countries such as Pakistan –  one of America’s counterfeit ‘allies’. The attorney of one victim –  a 12 year old, who was raped by a gang of Muslim men, describes the government’s collusion with Islamic criminals:

“In Pakistan rape is used as an instrument of arbitrary power over Christian girls, who come from poor and marginalized families. It is a form of violence that wants to reiterate the submission to Muslims. The rest of society is not outraged because the victims mostly belong to religious minorities, who are the most vulnerable. Rarely rapists are punished. Furthermore, rape victims face terrible difficulties; they do not receive adequate medical treatment for sexual assault. Many girls are traumatized and become depressed and in need of psychological assistance.”

No one, whether it be a Catholic nun, a small child, a baby, a young girl not yet in puberty, or the elderly – are spared the ferocity of hate and spiteful treatment from these denizens of Hell. Their targets are not limited to just those of the Christian faith. Jews, Hindus, Yazidis and others are subject to their wrath as well.

Kirsten Powers of USA Today recounts an interview with Human rights lawyer Nina Shea, in which Shea described the horror in Mosul . “(The Islamic State) took the Christians’ houses, took the cars they were driving to leave. They took all their money.

One old woman had her life savings of $40,000, and she said, ‘Can I please have 100 dollars?’, and they said no. They took wedding rings off fingers, chopping off fingers if they couldn’t get the ring off.  “We now have 5,000 destitute, homeless people with no future,” Shea said. “This is a crime against humanity.”

The men of faith who have stood in the eye of the Islamic storm have a message to us in the West.  Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younnan, head of the Syrian Catholic Church in Lebanon, describes the campaign against Christians as religious cleansing:

“I want to tell American Christians to stand up, wake up and no longer be a silent majority. American-elected representatives need to stand up for their principles on which the U.S. has been founded: the defense of religious freedom … and respect for human rights.”

The exiled Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, Iraq, warned the West that its turn will come.  Archbishop Amel Shimoun Nona, writes:

Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.

Please, try to understand us. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles.

You think all men are equal, but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.

And Archbishop Nona’s warning has unfolded as reality in the U.K, America and in Europe, wherever followers of ‘The Prophet’ have migrated. Breitbart reports that school health services in the small Swedish city of Norrköping have found 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) among schoolgirls since March, with evidence of mutilation found in all 30 girls in one class, 28 of the most severe form.

And in England, Muslim men have committed thousands of rapes of children which the public authorities have taken great pains to ignore and cover up. The courts have so made themselves instruments of permissiveness that the U.K.’s military is forbidden to even raise their voice to militants during questioning.

In a follow up report, we will examine how American foreign policy has made religious minorities, particularly in the Middle East, more vulnerable to the savagery of the ‘religion of peace’.