06/6/16

The Red Guards Are Green

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The media have given the misleading impression that the policies of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-declared socialist, are radically different than those of President Obama or Hillary Clinton. In reality, they all propose to use government power to control the economy by either confiscating the assets of private firms or running them out of business.

Technically, this may be fascism, rather than socialism. But the totalitarian nature of what is taking place is unprecedented in American history. America is becoming a socialist state that not only determines the fate of private industry, but attempts to control what people think and read about important public policy issues.

In Venezuela, which is admittedly ruled by a socialist regime, an iconic firm called Empresas Polar, which provides everything from pasta to beer, is suffering under government price controls and regulations, and has been declared an enemy of the state. The Wall Street Journal has been covering the fate of this firm in detail in a dramatic series of articles.

Here, the problem is actually worse. Rather than targeting just one firm, the Obama administration has been seeking to destroy the entire coal industry, along with the jobs of tens of thousands of workers that the old-style Marxists used to claim to represent. In their latest move, “the Obama Administration is giving the industry its last rites by halting new coal leases on federal lands where mining is still profitable,” the Journal noted.

This is not just Obama’s policy. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if she became president, “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

The official Democratic Party policy of destroying the coal industry is being done in the name of saving the environment from alleged global warming. Toward that end, Obama signed the Paris Climate Agreement for the purpose of reducing global CO2 emissions. But he refused to submit the agreement for Congressional approval. The Global Warming Policy Foundation has published an academic paper which says the agreement is essentially a fraud, adding that it exempts countries such as China and India from undertaking any reductions.

In order to stifle debate over the job-destroying policies of the Obama regime, a group of Democratic state attorneys general are using legal tactics in an effort to criminalize and prosecute those challenging the global warming theory.

In an interview conducted by Ginni Thomas and carried by The Daily Caller, Dr. Kim Holmes, author of The Closing of the Liberal Mind, says the criminalization of dissent on climate change is “truly Orwellian” and “borderline totalitarian.” It is another sign of the decline of American democracy, documented in another important book, Democracy: And Why It Will Fail in America.

At the same time, the Portland (Oregon) Public School Board has voted to ban textbooks and other materials that do not support the theory of climate change. Patrick Wood, Editor of Technocracy News & Trends, asks, “Will they ban materials from the homes of students? What will be the punishment for being caught with such materials on Portland Public School campuses?”

The left-wing group Rethinking Schools calls this Portland, Oregon, board decision “the country’s most far-reaching policy on teaching climate justice in the schools.” It says the policy commits Portland schools to “abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its roots in human activity,” and requires the school district to develop a comprehensive plan to “address climate change and climate justice in all Portland Public Schools.”

This is, of course, occurring on a local level. But one could easily anticipate the Obama administration adopting this policy on a national basis, in the form of a directive to local districts, similar to the federal dictate on bathroom policy.

This agenda can be called fascism or socialism. But another “ism” also rears its ugly head.

Bill Bigelow, a former teacher and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, has referred to Howard Zinn as “the great historian and activist.” Zinn, whose books are force-fed to young people on many college campuses, was not only a member of the Moscow-controlled and Soviet-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) but lied about it. Zinn taught in the political science department of Boston University for 24 years, from 1964 to 1988.

Bigelow is the co-editor of a textbook on environmental education, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth. It looks like his campaign is at least partly designed to get his own textbook into the schools. Indeed, the group reports that Portland’s resolution “began in a workshop” led by the book’s co-editors, Bill Bigelow and Tim Swinehart. Swinehart, who teaches at Lincoln High School in Portland, is an alumnus of the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Commenting on the campaign to criminalize dissent on climate change, Dr. Kim Holmes said, “Once you break that barrier and tell scientists they will be punished, this is like the Inquisition in the 16th century or the Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution in China.”

Ironically, the Roman Catholic Church is involved in this modern-day inquisition, since Pope Francis has already issued a papal encyclical on climate change in an “unholy alliance” that includes anti-capitalist and pro-population control advocates.

The Red Guards were groups of students, formed under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, which eliminated remnants of the old order.

How different is that from what is happening in the U.S. today? The group Rethinking Schools says that what happened in Portland could inspire similar efforts around the country, leading to “millions of public school students” who would then become part of a nationwide army of activists recognizing “a climate emergency” that requires “shutting down coal-fired power plants, banning new pipelines and off-shore drilling.”

Swinehart declares, “Now the real work begins: transforming the principles of this resolution into the education of climate literate students across the district who feel empowered to work toward a more just and sustainable future.”

These new Red Guards are coming to a school district near you. Can we rescue America from mysticism and tyranny?

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.

12/2/15

Author: Open Borders Policies Reveal Obama More Interested In Power Than Protecting Americans

By: Ginni Thomas
The Daily Caller

To view the video, please click here…

As Americans awaken to dangers to our homeland, they are losing confidence in President Obama. A new poll shows Americans’ confidence in President Obama’s efforts to keep us safe after the Paris jihadist attacks is dropping.

Jim Simpson, author of “Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America,” has no confidence in the screening or border security policies of the Obama administration. To Simpson, a host of open border policies — including the Refugee Resettlement Program — provide a fertile ground for terrorists to enter the United States.

In this 25-minute video interview, he says, “This president and this administration have little if any concern for the welfare of American citizens. They are all about advancing their agenda and amassing political power at the expense of our welfare, our safety, everything. They are greedy for power.”

Simpson suggests the rallying cry for congressional Republicans should be a rider offered by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on the coming omnibus spending bill. It would, for once, cancel the “blank check” President Obama has for refugee resettlement in the coming government funding bill, giving us “a genuine pause” to ensure our government can protect us.

Last week, the House passed a cobbled-together H.R. 4038 by 289-137 with bipartisan support. To Simpson, H.R. 4038 was wholly inadequate to guarantee the government’s ability to stop the flow of dangerous immigrants and ensure our safety.

As for the narrative war being waged by President Obama and others against critics of refugees, Simpson reminds us that the Left’s primary counter-argument is always to vilify and destroy their opposition.

The progressives’ goal with open borders, Simpson says, is to overwhelm America with problems while creating a huge new pool of Democrat voters who will only be needed to achieve left-wing goals. Many believe the Left’s efforts to stop voter ID laws, cast as “racist,” is related to the influx of potential new immigrant voters.

Simpson discusses the Left’s desire to turn Texas blue, and how the state has received more refugees than any other region in the union. Refugees who are put on a fast track to citizenship, Simpson says, are eligible for all government assistance citizens can get, and even other programs, including a special matched savings program.

There are more compassionate and cost-effective alternatives that help refugees more than bringing them to America, Simpson reminds us, calling refugee advocates “greedy” for their own pecuniary interests.

Contrary to claims that refugees are being screened, FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress on the inadequacy of government screening and the non-existence of databases that exist from failed states.

With over half of the nation’s governors objecting to unscreened Syrian refugees coming in their states, Simpson advises more citizens to get educated and raise their voices to federal, state and local leaders. The White House is monitoring “pockets of resistance” for their “New Americans Program” being led out of the Obama White House. But ever since presidential candidate Donald Trump put immigration squarely in the public eye, Simpson thinks this policy and national sovereignty will be determining issues in the 2016 presidential elections.

The three things he wants more people to know about the refugee program are: (1) The inordinate influence of the United Nations in determining the bulk of who comes to America; (2) Governors, mayors and Congress have almost no say in the refugee resettlement process; and (3) Refugees are but one program bringing in outsiders who could threaten our national security.

For more information, see Jim Simpson’s book, Red-Green Axis, and video, Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch blog and the Center for Security Policy’s refugee resettlement activism center.

Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.

11/4/15

HARSH: Obama Official Who Pled Guilty to Espionage Gets… $250 Fine

By Richard Pollock
Doug Ross @ Journal

Glenn Woodell, a NASA supervisor who pled guilty to violating U.S. espionage laws involving a Chinese NASA contractor was given a slap on the wrist with six months’ probation and a $250 fine, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Daniel Jobson, a Woodell colleague and fellow NASA supervisor, had his espionage charges reduced to a misdemeanor and was released without any penalty.

The lenient plea deals were quietly delivered October 26 in U.S. District Court in Newport News, Virginia. The U.S. Attorneys office did not to issue a press release about the deals and declined comment when contacted by the DCNF.

Woodell was charged under Title 18 of the nation’s espionage laws and faced a maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment and a fine of $100,000.

“It’s like a traffic ticket or something for littering,” commented former U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf in an interview with the DCNF. A former Virginia Republican congressman who was chairman of a House appropriations oversight subcommittee for NASA, worked to expose Bo Jiang, the Chinese NASA contractor at the heart of the espionage case.

Woodell permitted Bo Jiang “complete and unrestricted access” to the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, according to the indictment filed October 20. The indictment stated that he had violated NASA’s security and IT regulations over a two-year period, from Spring 2011 to January 2013.

The Obama administration’s lenient treatment of Woodell drew immediate criticism of what is viewed as a too-permissive attitude toward foreign nationals working at government facilities containing national security assets.

House Space Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Brian Babin, a Texas Republican, told the DCNF, “This punishment is inadequate and sends the wrong signal to our adversaries and those entrusted with protecting America’s most sensitive information.”

Rep. John Culberson, who succeeded Wolf as chairman of the NASA appropriations subcommittee, also deplored the plea deal.

“It is intolerable that espionage is not taken more seriously by the administration,” Culberson, also a Texas Republican, told the DCNF.

Culberson vowed to seek changes in the law concerning foreign nationals with access to NASA confidential activities. “I will do what I can to change the law and put conditions on NASA’s receipt of our hard-earned tax dollars to ensure they keep the Chinese government as far away from our space program as possible,” he said.

FBI Director James Comey told the House Homeland Security Committee October 20 that the administration must “get smarter” about foreign citizens with green cards who “wander around” sensitive U.S. facilities like NASA.

“This is the weakest administration. They are afraid of China,” Wolf charged.

Wolf noted China’s unveiling yesterday of its first large airliner to compete with Airbus and Boeing.

“The Chinese are stealing us blind. Look at their new commercial airline,” Wolf said. “Almost everything on that airplane is from Airbus and Boeing,” he charged.

Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly promised President Obama in his September 25 visit to the White House that there would be no more Chinese cyberespionage.

Yet a month after Xi left Washington, Chinese hackers targeted at least seven U.S. companies, according to CrowdStrike, a company the helps American companies fight cyberespionage attacks.

According to Woodell’s admission of facts published by the U.S. Attorneys office during the plea deal, a NASA security plan for Bo Jiang “required Woodell to ensure that Jiang’s access to information was limited to information that was unclassified, non-sensitive, non-export controlled that was directly applicable to the tasks assigned to Jiang.”

Instead, Woodell had given Bo Jiang unfettered access. “At no time did Woodell ever act to secure, protect or fully restrict Jiang’s access to the information,” the U.S. Attorneys office wrote.

Working with NASA Langley whistleblowers who were alarmed at Bo Jiang’s activity, Rep. Wolf publicly announced his concern in a March 2013 news conference.

Shortly after Wolf’s press conference Bo Jiang sought to flee the United States and was intercepted by federal agents at Dulles Airport on March 16, 2013. He had purchased a one-way ticket to his homeland in China.

The Chinese had in his possession a laptop with a Seagate External Hard Drive “that contained the NASA unauthorized, unrestricted access information,” from NASA Langley, according to the U.S. Attorneys office.

NASA headquarters did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more at Daily Caller.

07/8/15

Conservative Revolt Brewing Against Scott Walker Over Staffer Hired By His PAC

By: John Hawkins
Right Wing News

Last week, Right Wing News did an article about Scott Walker’s PAC hiring Brad Dayspring. If you don’t know who Brad Dayspring is, here’s an introduction from one of the conservative candidates he slimed during the GOP primaries.

“Brad Dayspring is well known as a despicable establishment operative who specializes in slander and character assassination against conservative candidates,” Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel—one such conservative Dayspring personally frequently attacked—told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday. “He is the perfect example of why conservatives no longer trust the GOP. He’s little more than a paid attack dog, without principle and honor, the personification of everything wrong with our present political system.”

McDaniel added:

“Scott Walker appears to be a good man with solid conservative instincts. But his hiring of the unstable Dayspring is an insult to honorable political discourse. If Dayspring is aligned with Walker, then conservatives should be warned to look elsewhere for leadership.”

Right Wing News has contacts with Scott Walker’s campaign and with his PAC. We reached out to both and asked for them to go on the record about Brad Dayspring. Unfortunately, nobody was willing to go on the record defending him — which should tell you a lot.

If Brad Dayspring is indefensible, why did Scott Walker’s team hire him? Well, you hire a guy like this either to stab conservatives in the back or to let your backers in the establishment know that you intend to do exactly that despite the rhetoric you’re using to trick the “bubbas” into voting for you.

Why else would they go to the mat for a new staffer after the reaction Dayspring received?

Breitbart has written a negative article about the hire and so has the Daily Caller (Where it was noted Dayspring had been telling people he was going to work for Jeb Bush). Over at Redstate, where Walker wrote a July 4th guest diary, the Wisconsin governor has been compared to Thad Cochran over this. Brent Bozell, the head of the Media Research Center, wants Dayspring gone. Mark Levin, who has roughly 7 million listeners, has been smeared by Dayspring before and retweeted the Right Wing News article we put out about him.

Since the article came out, we spoke to another one of the grassroots conservative candidates that Dayspring vilified, Dr. Milton Wolf, who primaried Republican Senator Pat Roberts in Kansas. Here’s what he had to say about Scott Walker’s team hiring Brad Dayspring.

“It’s baffling that a principled conservative like Scott Walker would hire Brad Dayspring. Dayspring is an attack dog for hire who specializes in slandering and maligning conservatives in order to protect the failed insiders who have abandoned conservative principles and are destroying our Republican Party.”

Here are just a few of the tweets from dismayed conservatives that flooded Twitter since the Right Wing News article came out.

I agree 100% with that last tweet.

Maybe Scott Walker’s team didn’t do its due diligence before it hired Dayspring. That would be a mistake, but forgivable. On the other hand, if Walker’s team hangs onto Dayspring, it might as well be flat-out telling you to leave a spot open on your back so a knife can be slammed in there down the road. A veterans’ group wouldn’t bring in Jane Fonda and no conservative you can trust is going to keep Brad Dayspring on his team.

06/12/15

Why Are TPA & TPP Being Referred to as Obamatrade?

By: Nancy Salvato

In an article by Connor Wolf called This Is The Difference Between TPP And TPA (Hint: They Are Not The Same Thing), he explains that these two bills are linked together because Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is a means to fast track passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I am confused by this line of reasoning because as a stand-alone bill, TPA is intended to provide transparency to all trade negotiations by soliciting public and congressional input throughout the process, however, TPP as a stand-alone bill, is a behemoth and most of the information to which the public has access has been leaked. Furthermore, it was negotiated behind closed doors. According to the verbiage of TPA, if TPP is not negotiated using TPA guidelines, the fast track option is negated. So why do news outlets and a wide range of legislators portray these two bills disingenuously? Bundling the TPA and TPP as one idea called Obamatrade is no different than bundling immigration reform and border security, which are two separate issues. One is about drug cartels and terrorism and the other is about how we manage people who want to immigrate to the United States.

Challenges TPA hopes to remedy throughout the negotiating process and in resulting trade agreements have parallels to challenges facing the US and its allies when agreeing to make war on the foreign stage. While one president may assure allies that US troops will assist in gaining and maintaining freedom, i.e., Iraq, a new administration or congress may change the terms, leaving a foreign country abandoned, with the understanding that the US cannot be relied upon to meet its agreed upon obligations. When negotiating foreign trade agreements, this same realization comes into play when negotiations that took place in good faith are undermined by a new administration or congress that change the terms. TPA hopes to create a set of consistent negotiating objectives when hammering out trade agreements, allowing agreements to transcend administrations and congresses.

The following excerpts from a letter written to President Obama from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, AL) would alarm any person who understands the division of powers and checks and balances built into our rule of law. Posted in Exclusive–Sessions to Obama: Why Are You Keeping Obama Trade’s New Global Governance Secret? Sessions explains:

“Under fast-track, Congress transfers its authority to the executive and agrees to give up several of its most basic powers.”

“These concessions include: the power to write legislation, the power to amend legislation, the power to fully consider legislation on the floor, the power to keep debate open until Senate cloture is invoked, and the constitutional requirement that treaties receive a two-thirds vote.”

Understanding that Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Representative Paul Ryan have gotten behind TPA, it would be short sited and irresponsible not to probe further into why they aren’t exposing these violations of our rule of law.

According to The Hill’s Daniel Horowitz in TPA’s ‘Whoa, if true’ moment, Cruz and Ryan have explained, “most of the content of the bill is actually requirements on the executive branch to disclose information to Congress and consult with Congress on the negotiations.” Congress would be informed on the front end, as opposed to debating and making changes to what was already negotiated. This is important because as Cato Institute’s Scott Lincicome and K. William Watson explain in Don’t Drink the Obamatrade Snake Oil:

Although trade agreements provide a mechanism for overcoming political opposition to free trade, they also create new political problems of their own, most of which stem from the inherent conflict in the U.S. Constitution between the power granted to Congress to “regulate commerce with foreign nations” (Article I, Section 8) and that granted to the president to negotiate treaties (Article II, Section 2) and otherwise act as the “face” of U.S. international relations. In short, the executive branch is authorized to negotiate trade agreements that escape much of the legislative sausage-making that goes in Washington, but, consistent with the Constitution, any such deals still require congressional approval—a process that could alter the agreement’s terms via congressional amendments intended to appease influential constituents. The possibility that, after years of negotiations, an unfettered Congress could add last-minute demands to an FTA (or eliminate its biggest benefits) discourages all but the most eager U.S. trading partners to sign on to any such deal.

TPA, also known as “fast track,” was designed to fix this problem. TPA is an arrangement between the U.S. executive and legislative branches, under which Congress agrees to hold a timely, up-or-down vote (i.e., no amendments) on future trade agreements in exchange for the president agreeing to follow certain negotiating objectives set by Congress and to consult with the legislative branch before, during, and after FTA negotiations. In essence, Congress agrees to streamline the approval process as long as the president negotiates agreements that it likes.

For a really good argument for fast tracking, watch the video that can be found here:

Here’s why the TPP is such a big deal 03:24

K. William Watson explains in What’s Really in the New Trade Promotion Authority Bill? TPA will actually bring more transparency to the negotiating process:

The current bill would require the administration to provide public summaries of its negotiating positions. This will give the public something concrete to debate without having to resort to conspiracy claims or wild theories. It will also help everyone see more clearly how negotiators intend to implement the negotiating objectives of TPA.

It will also require that every member of Congress has access to the full text of the negotiations from beginning to end.

If TPA actually does what it is intended, a bill like TPP could not possibly be held to an up or down vote because it would not have been negotiated using the processes as outlined. Or could it? This administration passed Obamacare, which is a tax; they wanted comprehensive immigration reform and secure borders yet they openly courted Latin American countries to bring their kids to the border; they said they’d be the most transparent administration but there has been a dramatic lack of transparency, one must pass the bill before knowing what’s in it.

Perhaps what it all boils down to is what Rick Helfenbein writes about in Trade promotion authority, a Washington drama:

There are other conservatives like Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) who remain adamantly opposed to giving the president (presumed) additional authority. Jones said of Obama and TPA: “Given his record, I am astonished that some of my colleagues are so eager to fork over even more of their constitutional authority to the [p]resident for him to abuse.”

While this article addresses the issue of TPA, it doesn’t begin to address the arguments against TPP, for example The Guardian’s C. Robert Gibson and Taylor Channing’s conclusion that, “Fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments, was only possible after lots of corporate money exchanged hands with senators.” That is an article for another day.

Nancy Salvato directs the Constitutional Literacy Program for BasicsProject.org, a non-profit, non-partisan research and educational project whose mission is to re-introduce the American public to the basic elements of our constitutional heritage while providing non-partisan, fact-based information on relevant socio-political issues important to our country. She is a graduate of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ National Academy for Civics and Government. She is the author of “Keeping a Republic: An Argument for Sovereignty.” She also serves as a Senior Editor for NewMediaJournal.us and is a contributing writer to Constituting America. Her education career includes teaching students from pre-k to graduate school. She has also worked as an administrator in higher education. Her private sector efforts focus on the advancement of constitutional literacy.

06/5/15

“Happy Pride Month” From the Media

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

The coming out of Bruce as Caitlyn Jenner is happening as various sexual minorities are celebrating “Pride Month.” It used to be “Gay Pride Month,” but the number of oppressed sexual minorities seems to be growing at an amazing pace. Without a scorecard, it is hard to keep up.

Sooner or later, pedophilia will emerge as just another orientation.

One of the leading enforcers of political correctness in the media, the site known as BuzzFeed, is coming down hard on “misgendering” by other outlets. It is not permissible, according to this way of thinking, to refer to “Bruce Jenner” anymore, or to call him a male.

The BuzzFeed literary editor has published a quiz titled, “How Transphobic Are You?” That’s right: “transphobia” is the new catchword, designed to silence those of us who still believe in the scientific, biological and traditional definitions of the sexes.

Publications such as BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post, as well as the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), represent the forces of cultural Marxism, designed to highlight and affirm what seems like an endless stream of sexual minorities objecting to their oppression by pro-traditional forces in society.

In a similar vein to what the NLGJA has directed in terms of acceptable coverage of transgenders, the ACLU has gotten into the business of telling the media how to report and what to think. The Daily Caller refers to it as the ACLU going “full fascist,” though it would be more accurate to label it as a Marxist way of thinking.

In any case, ACLU official Casey Strangio has declared, “Words matter, and erasing the identity of trans people by calling them by their birth names and birth-assigned sex is an act of hatred—one that is inextricable from the brutal violence that so many trans people, particularly trans women of color, encounter just for existing in the world.”

Strangio goes on, “There is no need to mention what her name used to be or what sex she was assigned at birth. And as writer and activist Janet Mock brilliantly explained to Piers Morgan, neither Janet nor Caitlyn were ‘born boys.’ They were born babies and they are women—brave and fabulous women.”

This is really beyond the pale. Babies are not born male or female anymore, just babies? What’s more, we are supposed to wait years or decades, in order to determine what they are, or at least what they claim to be.

“Caitlyn Jenner still has her penis” is the headline over a Richard Johnson story in the New York Post. That seems to make him still a man, at least in my book.

What’s more, Jenner still has male DNA. He can never eliminate that.

Nevertheless, “Caitlyn Jenner” is being honored with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at The 2015 ESPYS on ABC on July 15.

At the same time, CNN has announced that some “activists” are objecting to the “misgendering” of Caitlyn Jenner when people in the media label “her” as a “him.” These activists “say that when news anchors and commentators purposefully use a male pronoun for Jenner, such as ‘he,’ they are misgendering her, thereby insulting her and the transgender community more broadly,” CNN reports.

CNN adds, “News outlets are generally striving to be sensitive. Many journalists immediately adopted ‘she,’ and ‘her’ in articles and discussions.”

Count me a member of the “insensitive” group of journalists and commentators. I still believe in the science and biology of DNA.

The propaganda barrage comes as President Barack Obama has officially designated June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

Interestingly, however, the Defense Department is highlighting “the achievements and sacrifices of LGB service members and LGBT civilians.” That’s because transgenders cannot yet officially join the combat services.

DoD News reports that Air Force General Counsel Gordon O. Tanner, a gay attorney, said he plans to do two things in celebrating LGBT Pride Month—“set new mentoring goals to mentor more rising young LGB leaders, and visit the gravesite of former Air Force Tech Sgt. Leonard Matlovich in the Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill.”

“Sergeant Matlovich was the first to fight the ban on gays serving in the military,” Tanner told DoD News. “His picture was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1975; NBC made a movie about his life.”

Matlovich died of AIDS in 1988.

The Washington Blade reports that Tanner is the first-ever presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate who’s not only openly gay and married to a same-sex spouse, but also a military veteran. He was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote last September without any dissent.

Much has happened in the intervening years, to the point where the Council for Global Equality recently marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). I am not sure what “biphobia” is.

The Council for Global Equality was a recent co-sponsor of the “Conference to Advance the Human Rights of and Promote Inclusive Development for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Persons.” The term “intersex” is apparently another new addition to the list of politically correct gender identity categories. I’m not really sure what it means, either.

What’s important, of course, is that in addition to the Obama administration, a lot of big liberal money is backing this international campaign for new “rights” for various sexual minorities.

The Council reports that it has been “generously funded” primarily by the Arcus Foundation, Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and an anonymous source.

The executive director of the Arcus Foundation is Kevin Jennings, the former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama administration, while the Open Society Foundations are funded by billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros.

You may recall that Jennings’ activism was “inspired” by Harry Hay, the Communist Party member and “Radical Faerie,” who believed in the power of the occult. Hay was also a supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

Now that Robert Gates, the former defense secretary and current president of Boy Scouts of America, has called for the organization to open itself to homosexual Scoutmasters, can the acceptance of pedophilia as just another sexual orientation be far behind?

NAMBLA operates in the open, with a website devoted to “the benevolent aspects of man/boy love” and advocating “sexual liberation and youth liberation.”

In the past, the ACLU has defended NAMBLA, saying it goes to bat for “unpopular organizations” and believes in “robust freedom of speech for everyone.”

On the other hand, if you call Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner a he, which is how he was born, you are denounced by the ACLU as being guilty of hatred and possibly provoking violence. That’s enough to intimidate most of the media.

This is how a society spirals out of control, with the media afraid or unwilling to tell the truth any longer. Young people are clearly being singled out as the next victims, with sexual abuse being defined as love.

You might think, based on the media’s preoccupation with the terrible sexual abuse that has been documented in the Duggar family, that the media would oppose the sexual exploitation of children. But this scandal seems to be a convenient way for many in the media to make fun of the Duggars’ professed Christianity.

Our media have no principled objection to making children into sex objects. Otherwise, they would campaign to close down NAMBLA and expose the evil campaign to make sexual exploitation into just another sexual orientation.

The next phase of this sick campaign will be to present kids claiming to benefit from having sex with adults. If you object, you will be labeled as insensitive.

04/25/15

Toilet Paper Jihad

03/8/15

New Zealander: Amnesty Is Obama’s Trump Card To Transform America

Hat Tip: Nelson Abdullah

By: Ginni Thomas
The Daily Caller

Libertarian New Zealander, author and founder of the popular website, KeyWiki.org, Trevor Loudon is spending a lot of time lately telling Americans that “amnesty is the trump card” for President Obama to permanently transform America.

Citing a speech in 2010 by White House consultant and radical leftist, Eliseo Medina, Loudon implores Americans to wake up before it is too late in this video interview. He says, with Mitt Romney losing to Obama in 2012 by 2 and ½ million votes, if Obama can succeed in legalizing “10, 15 or 20 million more votes, almost all of whom will vote Democrat,” Obama can lock in progressive electoral victories for the foreseeable future and “make it practically impossible for the Republicans to ever elect another president.”

As for the Republican consultants who promote Hispanic outreach and the need for amnesty for future Republican victories, Loudon asks why would anyone listen to Karl Rove, “when he has lost so many elections.” Dismissing Rove as “a fool” who “spits on his base,” Loudon believes these consultants and Republicans are doing the bidding of the business community who want cheap labor. Loudon reminds viewers of what Lenin said, “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.”

Asking why new Latinos would be of higher value to Karl Rove and the political consultants than the 20 million conservative Christians currently not registered to vote, Loudon says Rove is demonstrating a “lack of understanding of political realities in his own country.”

Deriding those Republicans or conservatives who still write off President Obama as “incompetent,” he says this is a “power play for control with no viable opposition” reminiscent of what happened in South Africa, Venezuela and Czechoslovakia, with public deception covering up the true nature of regime change.

Although many in his country and in America may not be paying attention to politics, those foreign commentators who are, he says, are troubled by what they see happening. Loudon says, for those “thinking New Zealanders, Australians, Canadians, Brits, French and Germans, they are just freakin’ out. They are so worried. They see what Obama is doing to Israel. They see ISIS expanding in the Middle East. They see China building a big blue-water navy in the Pacific. They see Putin bullying the Ukraine, clearly wanting to reestablish his empire in Europe. They are freaking out because they have just come to the realization that they have been relying on America to defend them… when America is actually working for the other side, in many instances.”

To this self-described libertarian, Obama and his allies have set their sights on not just fundamentally transforming America, but the world. After all, Loudon says, “The world leader who was protecting us from the bad guys [America] is now helping the bad guys.”

Loudon ends with the admonition, “If America loses its Constitution, everything good about America will go. Vladimir Putin, the Chinese and the Iranians will rule the planet,” he says. “What you guys do in the next two years is going to make a huge difference to the fate of our civilization.”

WATCH PART 2:

For more on Trevor Loudon see his book, “The Enemies Within,” and his current short term crowd-sourcing fundraiser effort to produce a movie of the book by next October here.

01/10/15

Paris—The Latest Example of Islamic Jihadist Terrorism

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

While much of the media are doing contortions trying to explain why the latest terrorist attacks are either home grown, lone wolf, or committed by alienated youth, this misses the point. And yes, we realize that most victims of Islamic jihadists are other Muslims. Just look at the massacre in Pakistan last month of 141 individuals, including children and teachers. Or the one this week by Boko Haram in Nigeria that may have led to the death of at least 2,000.

The Islamic terrorists who attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris this week, brutally murdering 12 people, were killed by authorities today. The situation is still fluid, but reports indicate that at least 15 hostages are now free, and one more terrorist may be on the loose following two hostage situations that ensued during the hunt for the terrorists. One might think that Paris—and France—might be able to breathe a sigh of relief. In reality, however, the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the two ensuing hostage situations were merely a continuation of the latest line of Islam-inspired terror attacks worldwide, be it on the Canadian Parliament; in Sydney, Australia; in Pakistan; on two policemen in New York City; or in Moore, Oklahoma.

The problem is not who these attackers are, or whether they are a card-carrying member of al Qaeda, Boko Haram, or the Islamic State—but that they are conducting such atrocious acts. Just in the U.S. and Canada alone in the last couple of months we’ve had a number of attacks occurring in the name of Allah. To the victims, and most of the rest of us, the rest doesn’t matter.

The Washington Post is reporting that Boko Haram may have executed thousands. “A video recently emerged, Genocide Watch reported, that shows gunmen shooting civilians as they lay face down in a dormitory,” reports Terrence McCoy. “A local leader explains they are ‘infidels,’ even though he admits they’re Muslim: ‘We have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels. From now on, killing, slaughtering, destruction and bombings will be our religious duty anywhere we invade.’”

McCoy notes that Boko Haram’s attacks seem more “wanton” than those perpetrated by other terror groups.

These attacks are coming at such an accelerated pace today that any sort of long term solutions, such as being more responsible and not insulting Islam or the prophet Muhammad, seem futile. Do we really think anyone at the school in Pakistan or in Baga, Nigeria had slandered the prophet?

“The Religion of Peace” website has documented the Islam-motivated terrorist attacks of 2014.

The Washington Post reported on January 7th that the “Paris attack lacked hallmarks of Islamist assaults in the West,” highlighting the possibility that this was an unofficial attack “without any direct ties to groups such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.”

The next day, The New York Times reported that one of two attackers “suspected of killing 12 people at a satirical newspaper in Paris traveled to Yemen in 2011 and received terrorist training from Al Qaeda’s affiliate there before returning to France.”

However the media decide to parse the latest Paris attacks, these Islamic jihadis clearly have been drinking from the same toxic stream of violent ideology.

As happened with the Moore, Oklahoma beheading by Alton Nolen, the media and liberal pundits were quick to separate the Charlie Hebdo killers from Islamic ideology—going to great lengths to find a parallel with any other case they could fathom.

One guest on MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner” compared Jerry Falwell’s lawsuit against Hustler Magazine to the violent murder of 12 innocent people at Charlie Hebdo, without any rebuttal coming from Wagner. Jonah Goldberg of National Review condemned this as “The Dumbest 57 Seconds Ever on TV.”

I would also point to MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry’s characterization of Nolen’s beheading of a co-worker in Oklahoma as supposedly having as little to do with his alleged “workplace violence” as what he ate for breakfast. The FBI, apparently, swallowed the idea that Nolen’s attack was workplace violence, as well.

And recently, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Howard Dean went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to condemn the attacks, but asserted, “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life. That’s not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.”

“When I watch Americans use words like cowardly, barbaric, murder, outrageous, shocking, etc., to describe a violent extremist organization’s actions, we are playing right into the enemy’s hands,” said Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, U.S. commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, in December regarding ISIS, according to The New York Times. “They want us to become emotional. They revel in being called murderers when the words are coming from an apostate.”

The Daily Caller cited an example of The New York Times removing a section from a previously posted article that told how one of the terrorists at the Charlie Hebdo offices spared the life of a woman who was there during the attack:

“Instead, she told French news media, the man said, ‘I’m not going to kill you because you’re a woman, we don’t kill women, but you must convert to Islam, read the Quran and cover yourself,’ she recalled.”

Later on the Times altered the article, removing “but you must convert to Islam, read the Quran and cover yourself.” This is the type of political correctness that is commonplace in the media. It is not a matter of cowardice, fearful of being attacked like Charle Hebdo was, but rather an ideological, editorial decision to attempt to minimize the link to Islam.

As I asked in my recent column on the underreported and misreported stories of 2014, “What does it take to spark media outrage?… What is it going to take to end this ongoing slaughter by jihadists, acting in the name of Islam?”

In 2011, when Charlie Hebdo was firebombed for “an edition poking fun at Islam,” according to the UK Telegraph, Time Magazine’s Bruce Crumley blamed the publication for the violence perpetrated against it, writing,

“Not only are such Islamophobic antics [as publishing cartoons] futile and childish… but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?”

By such a measure the media should censor itself from publishing or disseminating the inflammatory Charlie Hebdo materials in any outlet at all. And if The Washington Post is any indication, that’s exactly what happened: it used a photograph that cleverly hides the Charlie Hebdo cover from view while featuring a copy of the publication amidst other magazines.

Ironically, a call to combat terrorism came, not from the media, but from Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al Sisi even before the attack in Paris. He made a speech that hopefully will prove to be a turning point, but don’t count on it. In his New Year’s Day address, he urged the Imams to lead a “religious revolution” against extremism. But he has a huge battle on his own turf, as he gained power after millions of Egyptians called for the removal of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who had been elected president of Egypt after the removal of Hosni Mubarak. This is but a small step forward.

As President Al Sisi said, “I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

Why must such bold words come from Egypt’s president, and not our own, and other Western leaders, or from the mainstream media? Steve Emerson, of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, argued that “Indeed, the responses from our own president, French President Hollande and British Prime Minster David Cameron all spouted the same empty pabulum in asserting that the Paris attack had nothing to do with Islam or any religion for that matter. But the hollow comments coming from our own leaders are steeped in the stench of appeasement and cowardice.”