Southern Poverty Law Center in Bed With Extremists
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
Why is the FBI missing the extremists in our midst? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the organization consulted by the Department of Justice for information on extremists is in bed with them.
Evelyn Schlatter, the deputy director of research of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), was listed as a participant in the recent Left Forum conference, which featured an assortment of communists, 9/11 truthers, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists, and other extremists. Schlatter was described as an expert on “right-wing political and social movements, gender, and sexuality.”
Schlatter should have some knowledge of left-wing political movements, especially since she rubbed elbows with some of their followers at the conference. Indeed, these far-left extremists are allies of the SPLC, which works directly with and advises the Obama Justice Department on hate groups and extremism. The FBI is under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.
In the case of the Orlando terrorist attack on a gay nightclub, the SPLC has been careful to avoid discussing in any significant detail the killer’s devotion to radical Islam, including his regular attendance at a Mosque and the presence of a Koran, a Palestinian book, and other Islamic paraphernalia in his apartment. Instead, an article on the SPLC website described Omar Mateen as simply “a 29-year-old American citizen who worked as a security guard and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the attack.” The article focused on the reactions of a few members of the “racist right” to homosexuals being targeted in the attack.
Fred Fleitz, senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Security Policy, says his organization was named by the SPLC as a “hate group” precisely because of “our work highlighting the threat from radical Islam.”
Denouncing the SPLC’s use of despicable tactics against leading conservatives, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (ret.) has said that the SPLC is “probably next to the Muslim Brotherhood the most evil group in America.” The Muslim Brotherhood functions as a front for terrorist organizations but is treated as a friendly Muslim group by the Obama administration. Indeed, national security reporter Bill Gertz reports that Obama has issued Presidential Study Directive-11, backing the Muslim Brotherhood.
As if the Justice Department needed more evidence of how the SPLC can’t be trusted to report on “extremists” in America, the SPLC’s Schlatter was joined at the Left Forum by pro-terrorist lawyer Lynne Stewart. Stewart participated in a panel titled, “Free Our Political Prisoners,” a reference to terrorists in prison. Stewart knows something about terrorism. As noted by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, she was convicted for helping the Blind Sheikh run his Egyptian terrorist organization, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya or “the Islamic Group,” from his high-security U.S. prison confinement. However, Stewart was freed from prison by the Obama administration on medical grounds.
The chairman of the panel featuring Stewart was Jennifer Meeropol of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization named for the Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
An advertisement in the conference program guide proclaimed, “Time to Take Down the Wall between the Left and the Truth Movement. No Justice or Peace without Truth.” This was an attempt to get more left-wingers on board the 9/11 truth movement, which claims U.S. government agents—not Muslim terrorists—were behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A panel associated with this view argued that Islamophobia was responsible for blaming Muslims for the terrorist attacks.
Among the organizations joining with the Southern Poverty Law Center at the recent Left Forum in New York City were:
- The Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-declared Marxist-Leninist organization raided by the FBI in 2010 because of its links to the terrorist FARC in Colombia and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist terrorist group.
- The Progressive Labor Party, whose motto is “Fight For Communism.”
- Red Star Publishers, described as “a small publishing company dedicated to making Marxist-Leninist literature available in print format at low cost.” It isassociated with the Party of Communists USA and US Friends of The Soviet People.
- Revolution Books, “A bookstore for a radically different world,” is associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, headed by former SDS leader Bob Avakian.
- Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the United States, and principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.
The opening plenary was titled, “Capitalism and Militarism—at Humanity’s Peril,” and was predictably covered by Russia Today (RT) in a story headlined, “‘Democracy in the US is a fraud’ Left Forum debates next steps for Sanders movement.” Speakers were:
- Medea Benjamin, an anti-Israel activist who co-founded Code Pink.
- Tariq Ali, a British Pakistani associated with the Marxist Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, who co-wrote the screenplay for the Oliver Stone film glorifying Venezuelan Marxist ruler Hugo Chavez.
- Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter who holds the distinction of being so far left that he was booed and greeted with chants of “USA” when he delivered a graduation speech on “War and Empire” at Rockford College in Illinois.
Titles of panels at the conference included:
- The Proletariat is Still the Revolutionary Class.
- Tear Down the Prison Walls!
- Intifada in America: The History of the Palestine Left in the United States.
- A Dialogue on Israel and Palestine With Tariq Ali and Norman Finkelstein.
- Animal Liberation Strategies in the Face of Indifference and Repression.
- Bully Nation: How Militaristic Capitalism Creates A Bullying Society.
- One Year of the SYRIZA-ANEL Government in Greece: The Perspective of the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
- Silencing Dissent: False Accusations of Anti-Semitism Against Palestine Solidarity.
- Cuba—Political and Economic Reforms for 21st Century Socialism.
- Prison Abolition: A Movement Towards New Directions.
- Deconstructing Gender Identity Under Male Supremacy.
- Some Reflections on the Russian Revolution.
- A Call for Leninist Unity.
- Queer Immigrant Organizing for Liberation.
Fleitz notes that the SPLC has become “a far left group with one purpose: manufacturing material to slander conservatives for use by the news media and on the Internet.” This is indeed why The Washington Post and other news organizations use the group in the first place. But the media carefully avoid any discussion of the extremists in bed with the SPLC, proving the essential dishonesty of what passes for coverage of extremism in American society.
Until this approach changes, on the part of the government and the press, Islamists will continue to escape scrutiny and kill Americans.
Trump Seen as Vehicle to Destroy GOP
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
While showing an image of Donald Trump as a wrecking ball, veteran leftist operative Webster Tarpley told the recent Left Forum in New York City, “If we play this right, he can destroy the Republican Party.” The comments, delivered at the major left-wing gathering of the year, reflect the belief among “progressive” activists that the Donald J. Trump candidacy can be used to destroy the Republican Party and usher in a major period of Democratic Party rule, under the increasing influence of an openly socialist faction.
“This party must be destroyed,” Tarpley said, referring to the Republicans.
Tarpley’s analysis of the political scene takes on additional significance as we see evidence of communists and Mexican nationals protesting outside Trump rallies and assaulting Trump supporters. Tarpley’s audience was the Left Forum, which is described as “the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public.” The theme for this year’s event was “Rage, Rebellion, Revolution: Organizing Our Power.”
Those participating included the Democratic Socialists of America (which supported Barack Obama and now Bernie Sanders), the Southern Poverty Law Center, representatives of the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, the “Exonerate Ethel Rosenberg” campaign, CodePink, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Workers World Party, the Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and the Greek Communist Party.
A former operative in the movement led by Lyndon H. LaRouche, an aging Marxist ideologue who served time in prison on fraud charges, Tarpley is viewed by the left as an expert on the class struggle that defines the evolution of the American political system. He has been a prominent figure in the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, which blames unnamed U.S. officials for carrying out the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. He is today associated with the Tax Wall Street Party, a group backing the Sanders proposal to raise taxes on financial transactions in order to finance a socialist super state.
Drawing on historical sources and stories about turmoil in the Trump campaign and the GOP, Tarpley predicted that Trump’s candidacy will divide the Republicans and result in one of its factions merely surviving as a regional party based in the Deep South, rural areas, and the intermountain West. However, he said the party itself has become so dependent on “aging white men,” a shrinking percentage of the electorate, that it may be “demographically doomed” in the long term.
Tarpley, who thinks Sanders has not gone far enough to the left, believes opposing Trump and calling him a fascist is a smart organizing tactic by the left. In his talk, “Destroy the GOP—Split the Dems,” Tarpley describes the Sanders campaign and associated groups as “New Deal Democrats,” as opposed to the “Wall Street Democrats” backing Hillary Clinton. Eventually, if everything goes according to plan, the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party will take control in a “progressive realignment,” and a “new progressive coalition” could emerge and dominate American politics for decades.
“Trump is the trigger” for this dramatic series of developments, he told the leftist conference, and it means the Republican Party could go “extinct,” since it is perceived as being hostile to the new immigrants who have flooded into the country. He is predicting a complete political realignment for the period 2016 to 2046.
However, left unsaid in his presentation is whether after Mrs. Clinton is presumably done with her first term as president, she could be challenged for another term by the Sanders wing of the party, possibly represented at that time by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
But the idea that Warren is somehow against the interests of Wall Street and finance capital is, of course, complete nonsense. She ran for the Senate with the support of hedge fund billionaire George Soros and other big money liberals.
While Tarpley is not a supporter of Mrs. Clinton or President Obama, he gives Obama, a skilled Marxist-trained operative, enormous credit for assembling a winning coalition in the presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012. He explained, “2008 was a watershed election, and in retrospect that will become more obvious than it is now.” He said Obama had ushered in “a new phase” of politics that has put tremendous pressure on the Republican Party to generate support from enough of the electorate to survive as a national political entity.
“That future is what you have to keep your eyes on,” he emphasized. “That’s where you have to get. It means a crushing defeat for Trump, if we can do it.”
At the same time, Tarpley acknowledged that Trump supporters have “legitimate economic beefs,” based on the declining standard of living, and the fact that “deindustrialization” has harmed the middle class by destroying millions of factory jobs. But the Republican ideology is “in crisis,” as factions of the party disagree over the benefits of free trade and solutions to other economic problems. Other major Republican donors have libertarian tendencies that threaten the GOP coalition as well, he stated.
While the demise of the Republican Party may seem like wishful thinking, Tarpley outlined a political scenario that is plausible to outside experts and which could mean that the GOP would meet the fate of other political parties in American history—such as the Federalists, Whigs, and Know-Nothings — “by breaking apart” and losing the presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court in the process.
Tarpley’s predictions about Trump’s negative impact on the Republican Party came just a few weeks before Trump unleashed a series of attacks on a “Mexican” judge, who was actually born in the United States, prompting more concern from current and former Republican officials that the Trump presidential campaign could jeopardize Republicans prospects in November.
The destruction of the GOP also means the defeat of what Tarpley called the “neocon warmongers,” defined as those who favor U.S. military intervention against radical regimes and terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Continuing the pro-Russian bent that has long characterized the LaRouche movement, Tarpley favors the destruction of NATO. He was a speaker at the “No to War, No to NATO,” conference in Rome, Italy, which also included a representative of the old Soviet front, the U.S. Peace Council. Tarpley then participated in a forum on “good relations with the Russian Federation” held in St. Petersburg, Russia.
While Trump has been critical of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and has questioned the need for NATO, a one-time anti-Soviet alliance, these positions were not of any interest or concern to Tarpley. Instead, Trump was viewed as an opportunity to divide and weaken the Republican Party.
With the Republican Party out of the way, the activists making up the Left Forum would be able to consolidate their power in the Democratic Party and move it even further to the left, in terms of more socialism at home and more accommodation of “anti-imperialist” and “anti-capitalist” forces abroad.
Cliff Kincaid
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.
Donald Trump and the Southern Poverty Law Center
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
The debate over Donald J. Trump’s charges of a “rigged” Republican primary system demonstrates that Trump wasn’t a Republican to begin with. As a Democrat who became a Republican just to seize the nomination, he seems to have had no understanding of how the Republicans operate and manage their presidential nominating process. He has been forced to bring a former top Republican, Paul Manafort, into his campaign organization to help him compete for delegates.
Rush Limbaugh and Joseph Farah maintain that Trump, the master of complex real estate deals, completely understood the Republican rules but chose to ignore them so that he could accuse the GOP of being corrupt.
If this is the case, then Trump’s campaign is even more of a hostile takeover than anyone imagined.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his followers have been able to work within the system because they have contacts with the elected officials and other activists who make up the Republican Party base.
Obama-linked Extremist Group Publishes “HIT LIST” of Anti-Sharia Females in the U.S.
The Obama-tied leftist group that helped a gunman commit an act of terrorism against a conservative organization has assembled a starter kit for Islamists to attack American women who refuse to comply with Sharia law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism.
It’s the summer special from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an extremist nonprofit that lists conservative organizations that disagree with it on social issues on a catalogue of “hate groups.” A few years ago a gunman received a 25-year prison sentence for carrying out the politically-motivated shooting of the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters after admitting that he learned about the FRC from the SPLC “hate map.” Prosecutors called it an act of terrorism and recommended a 45-year sentence.
Now the SPLC, which has conducted diversity training for the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ), is targeting female bloggers, activists and television personalities who refuse to comply with Sharia law which is rooted in the Quran. The European Court on Human rights has repeatedly ruled that Sharia is “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy” yet politically-connected radical Muslim groups—such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)—keep pushing to implement it in the United States and the movement has gained steam.
Among those resisting this effort publicly are the high-profile women being targeted by the SPLC. Some of them are colleagues or friends of Judicial Watch and now they must fear for their safety simply for practicing their rights under the U.S. Constitution. The new hate list is titled Women Against Islam/The Dirty Dozen and includes illustrations and detailed information on all the women, who are branded “the core of the anti-Muslim radical right.” The new SPLC hate brochure further targets them by claiming that they’re “a dozen of the most hardline anti-Muslim women activists in America.”
Political activist and commentator Pamela Geller is branded the “country’s most flamboyant and visible Muslim-basher” for, among other things “smearing and demonizing Muslims.” Blogger Ann Barnhardt is identified as one of the “most extreme Muslim-bashers in the United States” and radio talk-show host Laura Ingram made the list for saying that hundreds of millions of Muslims were delighted that 12 people were massacred by Islamic terrorists in the Paris headquarters of a satirical magazine. Former CIA agent Clare Lopez, who runs a Washington D.C. think-tank focusing on national security issues, made the list for saying that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated and suborned the U.S. government to actively assist…the mission of its grand jihad.”
Others appearing on the anti-Sharia docket include television personality and former judge and prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, former chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party Cathie Adams, talk-show host Sandy Rios of the American Family Association, syndicated columnist Diana West, attorney and columnist Debbie Schlussel, blogger Cathy Hinners, ACT! for America founder Brigitte Gabriel and conservative writer and TV personality Ann Coulter. Among her biggest offenses, according to the SPLC, is proclaiming that “not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims—at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America.”
Incredibly, the SPLC is one of a number of leftist special interest groups that has colluded with the DOJ since Obama moved into the White House. A few years ago JW uncovered government records that show the DOJ Civil Rights and Tax divisions engaged in questionable behavior while negotiating for SPLC co-founder Morris Dees to appear as the featured speaker at a 2012 “Diversity Training Event.” JW pursued the records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to determine what influence the SPLC’s branding of hate groups has had on government agencies.
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Liberal Media Work With Jihadists
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
It’s strange that the liberals in the media who always complain about Joe McCarthy once having a list of communists in government are so quick to cite the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of so-called right-wing extremists or “haters.”
With the help of the media, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is setting people up for terrorist attacks inside the United States. Pamela Geller is the latest on the list of the SPLC that has now been targeted for death by the jihadists. ISIS says “…we will send all our Lions to achieve her slaughter.”
ISIS is angry that Geller, an opponent of jihad, has defended the First Amendment right of free speech against Islamic Sharia law.
In response, ISIS tried to massacre people at Geller’s Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas on Sunday. Two terrorists were killed and an unarmed security guard protecting the event was shot in the leg.
It’s an open secret that ISIS can get locations for its targets from the SPLC website. That’s how homosexual militant Floyd Corkins discovered the location of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. and showed up at its headquarters, opening fire on a security guard. He had hoped to conduct a massacre of FRC staff.
Indeed, Corkins told the FBI after the shooting that he intended to “kill as many as possible” and smear the 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he was carrying in the victims’ faces. Chick-fil-A had been in the news because its CEO had defended traditional marriage.
As we noted in a previous column, “The SPLC targets its critics by name…labeling them ‘hate groups’ and running photographs of officers and employees so they can more easily be identified.”
The SPLC sends its “intelligence reports” around the country, listing people and groups by name with their locations. This puts the leaders of these groups and their families at risk of terrorist attack.
Rather than express disgust with this tactic, the media regard the SPLC as somehow a credible source of information.
This brings a human face to the slogan “if it bleeds, it leads,” and makes the media complicit in the planned jihad on American soil and its victims.
The SPLC exercises what journalist James Simpson calls “partisan tolerance,” which means conservatives and Christians must be demonized and destroyed. On the other hand, anyone on the left is acceptable. That’s why the SPLC hailed the “educational” work of Weather Underground terrorist bomber Bill Ayers.
As the leading spear-carrier in the cultural Marxist war on America, the SPLC is one of the most despicable groups on the political scene these days, and yet it is accepted by the media as somehow authoritative and respectable.
No matter how many times the group is exposed for sloppy research and money-making scams, it is still considered a source of legitimate information by some in the media.
That’s why its apparent role in the targeting for death of Pamela Geller has to be highlighted and exposed. News organizations are helping terrorist groups by giving the SPLC unwarranted sympathy and publicity.
ISIS has figured out that all it has to do in order to identify their critics is go to the SPLC website and search its “hate map” and various “lists” of so-called extremists. The SPLC makes it easy for terrorists to wage jihad on American soil.
Yet, for a time, the Obama/Holder Justice Department and its FBI openly collaborated with the SPLC. For example, Judicial Watch discovered that SPLC head Morris Dees had appeared as the featured speaker at a “Diversity Training Event” on July 31, 2012, at the Department of Justice. The FBI has even listed the SPLC as a credible source of information on “hate crimes.”
The SPLC tends to focus its critical attention on opponents of radical Islam and critics of the homosexual agenda.
The media’s reliance on this organization was disclosed publicly by the hapless Bob Schieffer on a recent “Face the Nation” episode when he interviewed Tony Perkins of the FRC and began by noting, “You and your group have been so strong in coming out…against gay marriage that the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group. We have been inundated by people who say we should not even let you appear because they, in their view, quote, ‘You don’t speak for Christians.’ Do you think you have taken this too far?”
This comment proves that Schieffer has lost it as a newsman. Did he even bother to investigate the SPLC? Was he aware of the terrorist attack on the FRC offices inspired by the SPLC?
Simply because the homosexuals inundated the CBS switchboard, Schieffer felt compelled to take their objections seriously. This is not the usual way journalism is done. But it’s the way liberals in the media operate. Their ignorance is astounding.
Geller understands what is happening and frames the issue this way: “Truth is the new hate speech.”
The media need to educate themselves quickly about how they are playing into the hands of not only the SPLC but the terrorists who are targeting enemies on American soil.
This assumes, of course, that the media do not want to inspire more violence in America.
Typically, the liberal media describe the SPLC as a “civil rights organization.”
For those in the media who want to avoid violence and report the facts, for a change, Jim Simpson’s recent talk on “cultural Marxism” is required viewing.
In a report, Simpson defines partisan tolerance as expressing “partisan hatred for everything non-leftist,” noting that it “seeks to actively muzzle the views of the majority.” This lies behind the labeling of conservatives and Christians as extremists or “haters.”
He notes that the concept of partisan tolerance is associated with cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse and is based on “an extreme arrogance that assumes they are infallible in their utopian fantasies, and have the right to impose their will on us no matter what we think.” The notion that all positions incompatible with leftist designs can and must be suppressed is at “the heart” of their worldview, Simpson points out.
He adds, “The idea was further developed in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, especially rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Alinsky popularized the tactic, but Marcuse invented the concept.”
In the ISIS message targeting Geller for death, the group said, “The next six months will be interesting…May Allah send his peace and blessings upon our prophet Muhammad and all those who follow until the last Day.”
It’s time for the media to stop encouraging the bloodshed.
Pam Geller and those Before Her
By: Denise Simon
Founder’s Code
Did the Yazidis draw cartoons? Did James Foley draw cartoons? Did Daniel Pearl draw cartoons?
How is it that Islam has assumed exclusive power with the declaration they are the judge, jury and executioner of what is blasphemy?
The Southern Poverty Law Center has this on Pam Geller. Ah but, they do have a right to do so as noted by the Supreme Court decision in 2011 in the case of picketing a funeral.
All media, even global media has become Sharia compliant for not standing long ago on free speech and now for blaming the Garland, Texas attack on those who are taking a stand.
Pam Geller, Tom Trento, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and Louis Gohmert are all declaring a call to action, a clarion call and offering sage advise. Are we as a nation listening? Two hundred plus years later why are they forced to do this? They are telling you the same as many historical figures before them. LISTEN
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
― George Washington
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]”
― Harry S. Truman
Article the third… Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So Geller is taking a stand with her organization noted here.
Robert Spencer is doing the same here, offering books and lesson plans.
Tom Trento is tireless in his efforts as noted here.
Geert Wilders has been at the mission for a very long time in Europe.
Koran says the following about the Jews, Christians, and other “unbelievers:”
“O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.” (Sura 5, verse 51).
“And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah DESTROY them; how they are turned away!” (Sura 9, verse 30).
“And the Jews will not be pleased with you, nor the Christians until you follow their religion. Say: Surely Allah’s guidance, that is the (true) guidance. And if you follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you, you shall have no guardian from Allah, nor any helper.” (Sura 2, verse 120).
“And KILL them (the unbelievers) wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.” (Sura 2, verse 191).
“Let not the believers take the unbelievers for friends rather than believers; and whoever does this, he shall have nothing of (the guardianship of) Allah, but you should guard yourselves against them, guarding carefully; and Allah makes you cautious of (retribution from) Himself; and to Allah is the eventual coming.” (Sura 3, verse 28).
“And guard yourselves against the fire which has been prepared for the unbelievers.” (Sura 3, verse 131)
“And when you journey in the earth, there is no blame on you if you shorten the prayer, if you fear that those who disbelieve will cause you distress, surely the unbelievers are your open ENEMY.” (Sura 4, verse 101).
“O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).” (Sura 9, verse 123).
“Surely We have prepared for the unbelievers chains and shackles and a burning fire.” (Sura 76, verse 4).
“O you who believe! if you obey a party from among those who have been given the Book (The Jews and Christians), they will turn you back as unbelievers after you have believed.” (Sura 3, verse 100).
“And their taking usury (interests on money) though indeed they were forbidden it and their devouring the property of people falsely, and We have prepared for the unbelievers from among them a painful chastisement.” (Sura 4. verse 161).
“Surely Allah has cursed the unbelievers (Jews, Christians and followers of other faiths) and has prepared for them a burning fire.” (Sura 33, verse 64).
“And whoever does not believe in Allah and His Apostle, then surely We have prepared burning fire for the unbelievers.” (Sura 48, verse 13).
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.
Media’s Lack of Curiosity About Killer of Muslims in North Carolina
By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media
Was the brutal murder of three Muslims in North Carolina this week a case of “random violence,” or were the three targeted because of their Muslim faith? And why, of all the murders committed across the country this week, did these three grab so much national media attention? The FBI has now joined the investigation.
Perhaps the lessons learned from Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona in January of 2011 could inform the answers to these questions, and serve as a reminder of the dangers of biased reporting on murder cases. But, unfortunately, the mainstream media continue to perpetuate a confusing double standard when it comes to reporting on the deaths of innocents.
Why, for example, did the deaths of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina gain traction at The Washington Post, Reuters, and many other media outlets which speculated that it was a possible hate crime, while this black teen murdering a white classmate and taking a selfie with the corpse didn’t receive anywhere near the same treatment? And what about the murders occurring in Chicago every day? Don’t those deserve headlines, and candlelight vigils too?
“However, I do think it’s fair to say that attributing political motives to individual killings is much more of a phenomenon on the left than on the right,” argues Mark Hemingway for The Weekly Standard in a column regarding the recent execution-style shootings of Deah Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.
The alleged shooter, Craig Stephen Hicks, liked the “Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Freedom from Religion Foundation, Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy,’ Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gay Marriage groups and similar progressive pages” on Facebook, notes Hemingway. Maddow didn’t mention any of that on her show when talking about the incident.
Hicks displayed a habit of posting snarky pictures with slogans like, “Democrats aren’t perfect but at least they haven’t been shoving poor Jesus up my c—ch and Ronald Reagan down my throat.” Another picture he promoted reads, “So Rick Santorum thinks that when people get educated they stop believing in God? Best advertisement for Atheism I’ve ever heard.”
And Hicks commented on Ground Zero: “Seems an overwhelming majority of Christians in this country feel that the Muslims are using the Ground Zero Mosque plans to’mark their conquest’ [sic] Bunch of hypocrites, everywhere I’ve been in this country there are churches marking the Christian conquest of this country from the Native Americans. Funny thing is the Christians did that while defying our Constitution, and got away with it!!”
“It was logical for some people to hear about the shootings and wonder if recent news involving the Islamic State—including the deaths of a Jordanian pilot and an American hostage—could lead to some sort of reprisal against Muslims, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” reported the Post regarding the three deaths on February 11.
In 2011 the SPLC’s Richard Cohen blamed the shooting of Rep. Giffords on Sarah Palin’s political rhetoric, citing the work of staffer Potok. The Discovery Channel plans to air a documentary, “Hate in America,” this month with the SPLC as a partner helping “examine the current realities of intolerance in America.”
The SPLC runs a hate crimes racket, and the media—desperate to promote headlines that fit their pre-existing left-wing narratives about race, inequality and religion—are quick to swallow their propaganda.
“I think it’s perfectly natural to guess that this is anti-Islamic,” Potok told the Post in the interview regarding the triple murder. “Not just because the three victims are Muslim, but because there has been so much terrible news in recent days about extremist Muslims.” Potok also appeared on MSNBC on the morning of February 13 with the news anchor Tamron Hall, and there was no mention of Hicks’ political leanings, which appear to be consistent with their own.
It is ironic that Hicks, himself, may have, at least in part, allowed the SPLC to fuel his own brand of hate—if it was hate, and not a longtime dispute over parking—that caused Hicks to allegedly kill three innocent people.
“We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was…But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers,” wrote Paul Krugman of The New York Times after the Loughner shooting.
“Keith Olbermann had a special edition of his ‘Countdown’ show on MSNBC the night of the shooting, in which he had a series of guests on who all speculated that Loughner was influenced by ‘right-wing extremists’ and that the Right was far more guilty of violent and hateful speech than the Left, creating a climate conducive for this sort of action,” I reported back in 2011.
Have the media learned from their past attempts to politicize violent shootings, or does the marked omission of similar rhetoric regarding the Hicks case simply indicate that the mainstream media hope that the progressive ideology of this alleged killer will not actually be used against them?
If Hicks was a champion of liberal causes such as gay rights and abortion, and one’s ideological background has any bearing on the decision to brutally murder someone, then why isn’t the media likewise exploring in depth Hicks’ motivations—his likes, dislikes, ideology, inspiration, etc.—as they did when they erroneously blamed the right for Loughner’s shooting of Giffords? Instead, the Post published a story on the “particular tensions between Islam and atheism” which allowed atheist groups to denounce and separate themselves from the killer. If Hicks had any deeper motivation rooted in progressivism, you wouldn’t find it there.
On February 11 The Washington Post authors quoted from the SPLC, then linked to Hicks’ Facebook page, and failed to inform their readers of Hicks’ admiration for this group.
And the motivation of the attack remains in dispute, despite the hate crime allegations. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime,” said the victims’ father Mohammed Abu-Salha. His evidence: “This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt.”
More recent news reporting by the Associated Press indicates that when Hicks “talked with them with his gun in his belt,” as the father described, it was likely during a dispute over a visitor’s parking space. According to the AP, a resident of that condo “said Hicks complained about once a month that the two men were parking in a visitor’s space as well as their assigned spot.”
It continued: “He would come over to the door, knock on the door and then have a gun on his hip saying ‘you guys need to not park here,’ said Ahmad, a graduate student in chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill. ‘He did it again after they got married.’”
The victims in the most recent case appear to be the type of Muslims whom many in America would embrace as fellow patriots, rather than as radical fundamentalists who prompt what some term “Islamophobia.” The murdered couple was active in charity efforts. “Barakat had recently posted about providing free dental supplies and food to dozens of homeless people in Durham, something he had done twice in recent months, buying toothpaste, brushes, floss and mouthwash that he put into individual bags for each homeless person,” reported the Post. And his wife had traveled to the Turkish border last year, not to join the Islamic State but to “deliver dental supplies to a Turkish town…”
But then again, Barakat and his wife met while helping to run North Carolina State’s Muslim Student Association (MSA) chapter. Perhaps they weren’t aware of the origins of that organization. The MSA is a Muslim Brotherhood front group, and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the group that spawned al Qaeda and Hamas. President Obama has embraced the MB at home and abroad, and this is a subject that the media should thoroughly explore, while there is still a chance to diminish their influence. Unfortunately, very few in our media are willing to investigate the MB—or even acknowledge their influence—instead they treat them like some benign, charitable group such as the Kiwanis International.
While it would be convenient for the media, and its allies on the left, to proffer evidence of a violent Muslim backlash when speaking about the culture of hate in a world full of news reports about Islamic State militants beheading their captives, or the Charlie Hebdo murders, not every murder’s newsworthiness should be coldly calculated based on the race, faith, or the known ideology of its participants—or perpetrators. There is an average of about 40 murders a day in this country, most of which we never hear about until the media find one that fits a narrative for them. Or at least they think it does. And then it takes on a life of its own.
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)
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)
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.
Who Will Defend Free Speech in America?
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
In a story about Bret Baier’s withdrawal from a Catholic conference, where he was going to speak about his Catholic faith, the website known as Mediaite noted that Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) was going to go through with his appearance at the event. But the website warned him about the consequences of offending the homosexual lobby. “Given the controversy that follows House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) more than a decade after he allegedly spoke before a group connected to white supremacists, Jindal, who has presidential ambitions of his own, must be giving his appearance some serious thought right about now,” it said.
Hence, the philosophy of white supremacism associated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis is compared to Catholicism. That’s the message this so-called “respectable” source of news and information is sending. Jindal rejected that. The governor’s spokesman said, “Governor Jindal looks forward to addressing the summit and speaking about what faith means to him.”
The summit is sponsored by Legatus, a group that upholds the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality and other matters.
If Baier was speaking at or attending a fundraiser for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), that would have been perfectly okay. After all, many Fox media stars, including Megyn Kelly, have done so in the past. In addition, Fox pours money directly into this important lobby in the homosexual movement, and it’s not even a controversy.
What’s fascinating in this case is that the attacks which forced Baier and actor Gary Sinise out of the Legatus conference do not involve opening fire on anybody’s editorial offices and murdering the offenders. These things are mostly done differently in America. I say “mostly” because of the terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012. That was inspired by a “hate map” posted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) pinpointing the location of the FRC. A security guard was injured as he stopped a homosexual militant from trying to carry out a massacre in the FRC offices.
In most cases, however, the weapons of character assassination, distortion, and anti-Christian bigotry will suffice. The purpose is to intimidate and ostracize those who dare to associate with groups affirming traditional standards of morality. One of the new tactics, as used by Mediaite, is to associate Catholics with racial extremists. This is a smear that is beneath contempt, but the gay lobby and its fellow travelers will stop at nothing.
The message that the site was sending to Jindal is that he risks his political future by associating with a notorious hate group called the Catholic Church. It was a threat disguised as news.
The leftists have no quarrel with the views of the pope on economic matters. And they certainly won’t quibble with his encyclical on climate change when he issues that in March. But challenging the morality of the lifestyle of so many in Hollywood and the media is something else. Questioning the homosexual lifestyle simply cannot be tolerated.
Jindal, who is a Catholic, didn’t succumb to the pressure. He had the intestinal fortitude to remain true to his beliefs. He understood that the attacks on Legatus were an attack upon his own faith. He couldn’t back down and maintain his own principles. Jindal’s decision to stand up to the modern totalitarians in the gay rights movement has to be seen as courageous.
Backing out is especially troubling in the case of Bret Baier, since his speaking appearance at the Legatus summit was for the purpose of talking about his own Catholic faith expressed in his book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love. He wasn’t there to talk about gay rights. Neither was Sinise, for that matter.
Baier, or his corporate bosses, have to take the blame for giving in to the pressure. We would have thought that the Fox News Channel would have stood firmly for freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. It sets a terrible precedent that a “conservative” news channel, which became successful by speaking for many without a traditional voice in the liberal media, should bow at the altar of political correctness. Why they buckled to the pressure is a story in itself.
As we have pointed out, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is allowed to pontificate on the air, including on behalf of the gay rights cause. But a Bret Baier speech about his book at a Catholic event is supposed to be offensive. This is the state of our media today.
The tactics used by the homosexual lobby have been perfected by such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations against their enemies. What’s new is that the official Catholic Church teachings on human sexuality are now labeled as so offensive that people can’t even be associated with a group that promotes them. This is the kind of religious discrimination we have seen in countries like France against the Jews.
Some in the media called the summit “anti-gay,” which is a complete lie. As Legatus Executive Director John Hunt said in a statement, “Legatus embraces all that the Catholic Church teaches—nothing more, nothing less. Of course, at the core of all that the Church teaches is Christ’s unconditional love for every man and woman. While the Church has and always will teach about the morality of certain behaviors, these teachings are always to be understood in the context of the value of and respect for every human person.”
Turning Christian love into “hate” is an indication of how a situation can be twisted into something it’s not. This is how political correctness, a form of cultural Marxism, works in practice. The homosexual lobby has perfected this tactic of intimidation.
Hunt said the group’s members are only asking for the freedom to exercise their religious beliefs, “which includes the ability to gather together and discuss their faith.”
That such a meeting has become controversial, to the point where major figures in the media and Hollywood can be forced to back out, is a terrible reflection on the condition of the First Amendment right to free speech in America today. The news organizations that are involved in this silencing of freedom of expression have shown they have no understanding of what “I am Charlie” is all about.
In Memoriam
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