Biased Media

Rachel Maddow Defending Obama by Rewriting History

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via NewsBusters:

As Stanley Kurtz writes in “Radical-In-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism” (2010) —

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers — that famously unrepentant revolutionary terrorist of the sixties — were longstanding political partners. For eight years, Ayers and Obama worked together at two leftist Chicago foundations. Obama praised Ayers’s writings and funneled major financial support to the projects of Ayers and his radical allies. Ayers helped launch Obama’s political career and joined with the future president in the battle over an Illinois juvenile crime bill. Ayers played an important role in elevating Obama to the position of board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation Ayers himself helped create. Evidence suggests that Obama was responsible for bringing Ayers onto the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, where the two worked together to increase funding for radical community organizations, including ACORN and the Midwest Academy. Evidence also suggests that despite official denials the Obama-Ayers connection long predates 1995, when the Obama camp claims it began.

The significance of 1995? That’s when Ayers co-founded the six-year, $160 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge — with Obama as its first board chairman — not that they had anything to do with one another. Later that year, Obama launched his campaign for Illinois state senate in the Hyde Park home of Ayers and his wife, fellow ex-Weather Underground terrorist Bernadine Dohrn. Which again should not be interpreted as evidence that Ayers had anything to do with Obama, who could have launched his political career in any number of Chicago living rooms.

Obama’s years of collaboration with Ayers, which mysteriously occurred without the two men ever conversing, became problematic for the ambitious Illinois pol due to a deeply unfortunate coincidence — a story about Ayers touting his new book, “Fugitive Days” and the glories of bomb-throwing in the New York Times … with the story running on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The piece, under the headline “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives,” began with this memorable quote from Ayers: “I don’t regret setting bombs — I regret we didn’t do enough.” A sentiment surely shared by Osama bin Laden to his dying day.

“I can’t quite imagine putting a bomb in a building today — all of that seems so distinctly a part of then,” Ayers writes in “Fugitive Days” (page 295). “But I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility, either.” The book was published in 2001, the same year Obama and Ayers served together on the Woods Fund Board while magically having nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

What is worse than the above “Madcow” saying Ayers didn’t know Obama is the fact that Ayers was Obama’s ghost writer:

This is from an older post Via Gateway Pundit:

American Thinker has the story,

Google, which sits atop more data than anybody outside the NSA, is presenting Bill Ayers as the author of Barack Obama’s purported first autobiography, Dreams from My Father. Follow this link (below) and see it while you can. If it is gone by the time you read this, a screen shot of the page, and a close-up on the Dreams entry are provided for posterity.

Google knows so much about us already that privacy activists are alarmed. What data are its algorithms sifting through to come to the conclusion that yes, the stylistic parallels to Ayers’ other books are formidable and Barry never showed any sign of an ability to write this way before or after, and yes, Christopher Anderson’s friendly biography includes the information that Obama found himself deeply in debt and “hopelessly blocked.” At “Michelle’s urging,” Obama “sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”

…read more…

What does WIKI say?

Bill Ayers – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

William Charles “Bill” Ayers (born December 26, 1944) is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s activism as well as his …

And a Google book search? All results for bill ayers »

  1. Fugitive Days: A Memoir
  2. Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist
  3. To teach: the journey, in comics
  4. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
  5. Race course against white supremacy
  6. Teaching the personal and the political: essays on hope and justice
  7. Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and …
  8. A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court – Page 208
  9. Teaching toward freedom: moral commitment and ethical action in … – Page 172

And one last piece of information showing Ayers and Obama are close… a book appearance by Ayers had this flyer via Gateway Pundit:

A recent Baltimore book store—Red Emma’s— announced an appearance event byBill Ayers promoting his recent book “Public Enemy,” the Red Emma’s book store post states the following:

“Ayers reveals how he has navigated the challenges and triumphs of this public life with steadfastness and a dash of good humor — from the red carpet at the Oscars, to prison vigils and airports (where he is often detained and where he finally“confesses” that he did write Dreams from My Father)”

Well, Maddow does say her politics are to the Left of Mao… so should we be surprised if she uses propaganda? Who believes her anymore?

Sharyl Attkinsson Claims CBS Hid Benghazi Clip To Sway Election

Published by Papa Giorgio

Left leaning media bias is nothing new to those who are of the investigative mindset. But this example is a little more than having a 5-to-1 ratio of those that oppose the 2nd Amendment to those that support it. It is done to sway elections.

And I often hear about how horribly biased Fox News is. I will take a right leaning bias as compared to CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and the like — any day!

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson said in a Fox News appearance that her former CBS News bosses purposely hid a clip of President Obama refusing to call the Benghazi attacks an act of terrorism in order to help him get re-elected.

Mr. Obama told Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” the Sunday after the attack, “Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved. But obviously, it was an attack on Americans.”

The clip didn’t air, though the transcript with that portion was sent to “CBS Evening News” staff, Ms. Attkisson told Fox.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, took Mr. Obama to task during a presidential debate for his failure to call the attack an act of terror for 14 days — a perfect, and missed, opportunity for CBS to air the clip, Ms. Attkisson said.

“That exchange, I believe, should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time,” she said. “It was exclusive to CBS. It would have, it appears to me, proven Romney’s point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret.”

Ms. Attkisson said she was covering Benghazi at the time, yet no one at CBS advised her to use that clip from Mr. Obama as part of her coverage. Instead, she was directed to use other clips that showed Mr. Obama suggesting he had called the attack an act of terror from the very beginning, she said.

“And it was only right before the election that somebody kind of leaked out the transcript to others of us at CBS and we were really shocked,” Ms. Attkisson said during the interview. “We felt that … something very unethical had been done.”….

…Read more…

Fox News — Democrats Fav of Big 3 (plus: Drudge Report Leans Left)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was in a conversation with a younger person when they said that Fox News was biased. I mentioned that when you remove the “opinion pages” from Fox, they are slightly biased to the right… as much as CNN (once their “opinion pages” are removed) is biased to the left.

No kidding, twice they mentioned Sean Hannity, and I pointed out these were the opinion pages… then they f-i-n-a-l-l-y started tracking with me. I then mentioned that what they said is like someone coming up to me and telling me “the New York Times opinion pages lean left.” Or, “the Wall Street journal opinion pages lean right.” …

Bias - CBS NBC MSNBC FOX Media

Fox News: Enraging Liberals for 10 Years (L.A. Times):

….What explains all this hysteria? Success, of course.

The propaganda charge is unfair, at least when it comes to the network’s presentation of news. In the 2004 presidential race, Fox pollsters consistently underestimated President Bush’s support. In its final preelection poll, Fox had Kerry winning by a couple of points, one of the only polls to show the Democrat on top. I’m not sure a right-wing fifth column would do that.

A recent comprehensive study by UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose and University of Missouri-Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Milyo found Brit Hume’s “Special Report” — Fox’s most straightforward news show — more centrist than any of the three major networks’ evening newscasts, all of which leaned left.

The program is a model of smart news television….

Book: Liberal Media Distorts News Bias: Drudge, Fox look more conservative against mainstream’s liberal bent (US News and World Report):

…In a crushing body blow to the pushers of the so-called “Fox Effect,” which claims the conservative media is dragging the left into the center, UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose in Left Turn claims that “all” mainstream news outlets have a liberal bias in their reporting that makes even moderate organizations appear out of the mainstream and decidedly right-wing to news consumers who are influenced by the slant. [Read Fox’s Huckabee slams MSNBC’s Matthews, Scarborough over bias.]

“Fox News is clearly more conservative than ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and National Public Radio. Some will conclude that ‘therefore, this means that Fox News has a conservative bias,'” he writes in an advance copy provided to Washington Whispers. “Instead, maybe it is centrist, and possibly even left-leaning, while all the others are far left. It’s like concluding that six-three is short just because it is short compared to professional basketball players.”

What’s more, he says, “this point illustrates a common misconception about the Drudge Report. According to my analysis, the Drudge Report is approximately the most fair, balanced, and centrist news outlet in the United States. Yet, the overwhelming majority of media commentators claim that it has a conservative bias. The problem, I believe, is that such commentators mistake relative bias for absolute bias. Yes, the Drudge Report is more conservative than the average U.S. news outlet. But it is a logical mistake to use that to infer that it is based on an absolute scale.”

And in further analysis sure to enrage critics of conservative media, Groseclose determines that Drudge, on a conservative to liberal scale of 0-100, with 50 being centrist, actually leans a bit left of center with a score of 60.4. The reason: Drudge mostly links to the sites of the mainstream media, with just a few written by Matt Drudge himself. “Since these links come from a broad mix of media outlets, and since the news in general is left-leaning, it should not be surprising that the slant quotient of the Drudge Report leans left,” he writes. [Read Poll: Fox, O’Reilly most trusted news sources.]…

Video Description:

UCLA Professor Tim Grosclose has a new book out Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. In his book, he outlines what conservatives have known for years, that the mainstream media has turned more and more leftist which in turn promulgates, influences, rewords, redefines, and imposes leftist doctrine.

From the book:

Using objective, social-scientific methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see….

That bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal.

At the 2:37 mark of the above video, there is a distinction made between news versus opinion shows on Fox. When I defend the “fair-and-balanced” aspect of Fox News it is the equal number of left/right guests on shows dealing more with raw news. Here is a Pew Study that makes the same point:

Pew Study Finds MSNBC the Most Opinionated Cable News Channel By Far

A full 85% of the Comcast-owned network’s coverage can be classified as opinion or commentary rather than straight news, according to the authors of the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report.

CNN and Fox News Channel, meanwhile, fall much closer to a 50/50 distribution, with Fox News skewing somewhat more heavily toward opinion. Here are the breakdowns

Fox News CNN FAir

When professor Groseclose and other people rate and discuss the left/right bias… they are looking at the news reporting — NOT shows like Sean Hannity. And this fairness is why more Democrats trust Fox News than other cable networks.

Most Americans perceive partiality in the news media and more believe Fox News is the most trusted for accurate reporting among the major television news organizations, according to a recent poll by the Robert Morris University Polling Institute.

Fox CNN MSNBC Democrats Republicans

The poll surveyed 1,004 people nationwide with proportional contributions from each state via an online survey held May 6-13. Of those surveyed, 31.8 percent identified themselves as Democrats and 25.7 percent as Republicans.

When asked which television news stations they considered biased, 37.1 percent said MSNBC and 36.6 percent said CNN. Fox News was first with 47.8 percent.

However, Fox News was also considered the most honest network: 18.4 percent of respondents said it was the most trustworthy. MSNBC was the least-trusted network, clocking in at 4.4 percent, and CNN was declared trustworthy by 14.1 percent of respondents….

  • Robert Morris University Polling Institute Powered by Trib Total Media (2014)

According to a recent poll, likely voters get their political news primarily from cable television. Among cable channels, 42 percent, a plurality, watch Fox News for its political coverage. Only 12 percent said they watched MSNBC. What’s more, most likely voters don’t like or have never heard of MSNBC’s prime time talent.

The poll, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, used a sample split evenly between political parties – even slightly favoring Democrats in some areas: 41 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. Forty-four percent said they usually vote for Republicans, while 46 percent answered Democrats. Forty-eight percent voted for Obama, while only 45 percent voted for McCain.

Even among this group, Fox News is by far the most popular cable outlet. CNN comes in at second, with 30 percent. A sorry MSNBC brings up the rear…

  • Politico and George Washington University (2010) (via NewsBusters)

(The graphic is from Pew Poll [2008])

McCainNewsBias

So, Democrats and Independents trust and watch Fox more — or at more of an even split — than they do most other networks (not all) . I only post this here to make a point that I am challenged with often about… so to reference this one post. (The above and below graphics come from some Fox having the best election coverage, HERE.)

FoxBias

MSNBC Says Beheading was Work-Place Violence ~ Prager Responds

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is the video description from YouTube:

Once I heard the name, that he was a convert to Islam, and that he beheaded a person… I knew. But almost immediately from the time I posted this, I got flack to “slow down” in my judgment. Not. I stuck to my guns, and was proven correct. Here are some of the “red-flags” that show his religious belief played a vital role in his behavior. I just wished he had followed the example of the man tattooed on his chest, Jesus, rather than Islam’s founder, Muhammad.

—————————

—————————

Dennis Prager discusses MSNBC’s coverage of this story and shows how vapid these people are. For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

Erin Burnett (CNN) Gets Smacked Down by Paul Bremer

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder (and Paul Bremer) dismantle older as well as new mantras flying around via our friends on the left. In the interview that is the centerpiece of the segment[s] here via Larry Elder, Erin “Monkey” Burnett gets all of her talking points smacked down. The only thing Miss Burnett accomplished was showing her bias/sarcasm well.

A Poignant Example of Media Bias In The Israel/Palestinian Conflict

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Above video) Interview via of Col. Richard Kemp (British Forces) and his take on the international commentary on Israel that is most obviously distorted.

This is entirely with thanks to TWITCHY!

Various news outlets are reporting that it was a ‘suspected’ Israeli air strike that killed 10 at the Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza.

Middle East Eye: In pictures: Death and devastation at al-Shati refugee camp

A suspected Israeli strike on a playground in the western Gaza City’s Al-Shati Camp killed 10 children on Monday, though the Israeli army denied culpability –

The Nation: Missile Strike at Al-Shati Refugee Camp Kills 10, Including 8 Children

Ten people were killed in the attack, including eight children, and forty were injured, thirty-two of them children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel claimed a misfired militant rocket caused the carnage, but several eyewitnesses blamed the explosion on an airstrike.

The Daily Beast: Israel’s Campaign to Send Gaza Back to the Stone Age

In the emergency room yesterday afternoon, young children writhed in pain on gurneys waiting for scrambling ER doctors to attend to them following an air strike on the Al Shati Refugee camp. Nine of the ten people killed in the attack were children and are many more were wounded.

However, Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati on the ground in Gaza affirms the Israeli claim that the “massacre” at the Al Shati refugee camp was actually caused by a misfired Hamas rocket.

“Leaning Forward” Past Facts and Common Sense

Published by Papa Giorgio

The left and Israel, h/t: HotAir:

And this story from Belgium via Libertarian Republican:

The French community in Belgium follows the lead of France in anti-Semitism: In Turkish, the sign reads, “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances.”  

Comedian Paul Rodriguez Strays from CNN’s Script (+Mark Levin)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via SooperMexican! (h/t to Libertarian Republican):

The popular Mexican-born comedian Paul Rodriguez shocked the CNN panel on illegal immigration when he advocated for deportation for illegal immigrants. Shamelessly, Don Lemon accosted him by insinuating that legal immigrants like Rodriguez can’t be against illegal immigration. Yeah, that’s pretty pathetic.

What about the leftist hero who was recently lionized by Obama? Mark Levine takes you on a short tour-de-forces of how Democrats try and re-write history:

Breitbart notes a recent visit by Mark Levin to the Sean Hannity Show:

…Chavez, who was also against ethnic organizations like La Raza, would tell illegal immigrants to get out of the country, especially because they lowered the wages of American workers. And he was often far from compassionate in handling illegal immigrants.

As Breitbart News has reported, “Chavez was so opposed to amnesty that even the film’s producers, who have a history of making politicized movies, decided, out of respect, to steer clear of the subject”:

As the New York Times noted, Participant Media, which produced the film, has a “fondness for films about social issues.” The company made Lincoln as a statement about bipartisanship, The Help to “highlight the plight of domestic workers,” and Promised Land as a “call for environmental action” against fracking.

But the producers avoided immigration reform in the movie because Chavez “fought for better wages and conditions for workers but held complex and evolving views on the status of unauthorized immigrants, some of which would be at odds with the changes many Hispanics and others are seeking today.”

Breitbart News has also detailed how much Cesar Chavez opposed amnesty:

Ruben Navarrette, Jr., a supporter of comprehensive immigration who has “studied and written about Chavez and the United Farm Workers … for more than 20 years,” wrote in a 2010 essay that “the historical record shows that Chavez was a fierce opponent of illegal immigration.” He added that “it’s unlikely that he’d have looked favorably on a plan to legalize millions of illegal immigrants.”

Chavez also wanted stiffer sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants, and Navarrette emphasized that it was “absurd for anyone to invoke the name of Cesar Chavez to pass immigration reform.” He stressed, “As I said, were he alive today, it’s a safe bet that Chavez would be an opponent of any legislation that gave illegal immigrants even a chance at legal status.”

Navarrette wrote that, according to numerous historical accounts, “Chavez ordered union members to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service and report illegal immigrants who were working in the fields so that they could be deported.”  

He noted that while Chavez was with the UFW, “UFW officials were also known to picket INS offices to demand a crackdown on illegal immigrants,” and the UFW even “set up what union officials called a ‘wet line’ to stop Mexican immigrants from entering the United States. Under the supervision of Chavez’s cousin, Manuel, UFW members tried at first to convince immigrants not to cross the border”:

When that didn’t work, they physically attacked the immigrants. Covering the incident at the time, the Village Voice said that the UFW was engaged in a “campaign of random terror against anyone hapless enough to fall into its net.” A couple of decades later, in their book The Fight in the Fields, Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval recalled the border violence and wrote that the issue of how to handle illegal immigration was “particularly vexing” for Chavez.

Chavez was also against ethnic groups like La Raza. In fact, he saw the dangers of such organizations from the beginning. 

“I hear more and more Mexicans talking about la raza—to build up their pride, you know,” Chavez told Peter Matthiessen, the co-founder of the Paris Review, for a profile piece in The New Yorker in 1969. “Some people don’t look at it as racism, but when you say ‘la raza,’ you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and it won’t stop there.”…

Re-Education Camps and Censorship “Chic” in the UK

Published by Papa Giorgio

Powerline has this story of government run media being used to guide the public towards a certain conclusion.Pravda

Salon.com (yes, I know) is celebrating that the BBC has decided to go full Pravda on us and cease allowing “climate deniers” on the air.  Well, it is a government-run media establishment.  But that would be the same BBC that refused to allow Churchill to broadcast his “appeasement denial” views back in the 1930s.  Yup, same slimy people.

Anyway, quoth a jubilant Salon:

Good news for viewers of BBC News: you’ll no longer be subjected to the unhinged ravings of climate deniers and other members of the anti-science fringe. . .  Were every network to start doing what the BBC is, their unfounded opinions would cease to be heard, Bill Nye wouldn’t have to keep debating them, and maybe, just maybe, they’d all just go away.

Esquire Magazine goes further in it’s diatribe of censorship that prove there is a totalitarian in every leftist waiting to get out, something Powerline missed, by-the-way:

The BBC Forbids Idiots On The Topic Of Science: No longer must Bill Nye debate the ignorant, at least in the U.K.

[….]

…BBC journalists must now attend seminars with academics and scientists who educate on what constitutes popular and marginal opinions.

Perpetuating ignorance for the sake of entertainment is not only getting boring, but is actively dangerous. US media companies should take note. American media makes political bipartisanship a game of spin and false controversy, which—as Jon Stewart will tell you—can inflict a lot of very real pain….

Yes, re-education camps… you read it right. Scientism on the march in the name of secularism. The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge, would be proud, as would others. Even the HHS is defining media in the immigration battle, this from The Corner:

– No recording devices will be allowed
– No questions will be allowed during the tour
– No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
– We ask that your questions be provided via email or phone after the tour to Kenneth Wolfe
– HHS ACF public affairs will provide answers to your follow up questions as quickly as possible
– We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
– There will be no on-site interviews by HHS staff before or after the tour, all inquiries go to Kenneth Wolfe

To continue… while the BBC stops debate on climate, the UK starts to talk seriously about the normality of pedophilia. CNN notes just how bad it is for the BBC in this regard:

Gay Patriot notes the following:

An increasingly vocal and open group of prominent British Academics is claiming that paedophilia is a perfectly normal and natural thing.

“Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males,” said the presentation. “At least a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children … Normal males are aroused by children.”

The presentation in question was presented at an academic conference at Cambridge University in the UK,  where other topics included: “Liberating the paedophile: a discursive analysis,” and “Danger and difference: the stakes of hebephilia.”

And — like every other horror of the current ear — this has its roots in the sexual liberation movement of the 1970′s.

With the Pill, the legalisation of homosexuality and shrinking taboos against premarital sex, the Seventies was an era of quite sudden sexual emancipation. Many liberals, of course, saw through PIE’s cynical rhetoric of “child lib”. But to others on the Left, sex by or with children was just another repressive boundary to be swept away – and some of the most important backing came from academia. [Emphasis added]

Hey, “Love is Love,” right?… 

Malcolm Muggeridge (a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and, in his later years, a Catholic convert and writer) said it best:

“If God is ‘dead,’ somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.” 

  • Ravi Zacharias, The Real Face of Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004), 32.

MSNBC’s Touré Blames Terrorism on Poverty ~ (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

New Video Above

 

~ Thanks to Twitchy for the links ~

So did “POVERTY” drive terrorism, as Toure says? Lets start with National Review’s article, How Khalid Learned His ABCs: 

…At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Alumni say “The Mullahs” kept to themselves and shunned their American counterparts. So much for the vaunted diversity benefits of cultural exchange (“We take great pride in the wonderful relationships developed with our international students,” crows Chowan’s Office of Enrollment Services.)

Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Also studying engineering at North Carolina A&T at the time was Mazen Al-Najjar, the brother-in-law of indicted University of South Florida professor and suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist fundraiser Sami Al-Arian.

While in North Carolina, Khalid Mohammed may have had contact with Ali A. Mohamed, another key bin Laden operative who enrolled at an officer-training course for green berets at Fort Bragg in 1981 and gathered intelligence for al Qaeda as a U.S. Army sergeant before being convicted of participating in the African-embassy bombing plot.

According to intelligence officials, Mohammed applied his American education to organize the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder last year of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast last fall that killed nearly 200 tourists last fall, including two more Americans.

Elite U.S. colleges and universities continue to help train students from America’s most hostile enemy countries. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Sudan — all official state sponsors of terrorism — sent nearly 10,000 students to the U.S. on academic visas between 1991 and 1996 alone. In the 2000-2001 school year, Mohammed’s native Kuwait sent a total of 3,045 undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, and other students to the U.S. His adopted homeland, Pakistan, sent nearly 7,000 students here. Osama bin Laden’s native Saudi Arabia sent more than 5,000 students. Mohamed Atta’s native Egypt sent nearly 2,300.

Between 1989 and 1995, nearly 100 Middle Easterners paid bribes to community-college teachers and administrators in San Diego — the home base for at least two September 11 hijackers — in exchange for counterfeit admission papers and grades, which allowed them to get student visas. The mastermind of the scheme, Iranian-American businessman Sam Koutchesfahani, pled guilty to visa fraud in 1998, along with officials from six colleges. The whereabouts of his “students,” who poured a total of $350,000 into the plot, remain unknown….

…read more…

The next article submitted for review is also by Michelle Malkin, and is entitled, “Educating the ignorant Kumbaya candidate,” and it is aimed at statements made by the candidates running for the 2008 office of President:

…As for Obama’s continued delusion about the “climate of poverty and ignorance” that supposedly breeds Muslim terrorists, can American politicians ever rid themselves of this unreality-based trope? This belief is part and parcel of the same idiocy that lead the State Department to embrace “spa days” for Muslims to “build bridges” with the Arab world and President Bush to open up our aviation schools to more Saudi students to “improve understanding.” John McCain also alluded to education-as-cure for Islamic terrorism at the L.A. World Affairs Council in March, when he declared that “In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.” Just what we need: more student visas for the jihadi-infested nation that sent us the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers.

Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn’s sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now: “There’s plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme ‘extremists’ are those who’ve been most exposed to the west – and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous – and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis….

…read more…

The third article for review is likewise by Malkin, and is entitled, “The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist,” clearly showing that the “jihadi-as-victim canard to the trash bin of deadly dhimmitude.”

The Independent of London has a piece up today on the wealthy, pampered lifestyle of would-be Christmas Day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The Nigerian elite enginnering student studied at one of Britain’s leading universities, “lived a gilded life” and “stayed in a £2m flat.”

The Independent says Abdulmatallab’s privileged status is “surprising” — “a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.”

Actually, there’s nothing surprising about it. The only surprise is that so many supposedly informed people — from British journalists to our own commander-in-chief — continue to perpetuate the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist.

Abdulmutallab isn’t the first terrorist admitted to a Western institution of higher learning who spread fundamentalist Islam on campus.

  • Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract–ahem–wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.

(See “How Khalid Learned His ABCs,” NRO, Marc h 3, 2003)

  • Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He had a medical degree. So did former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi.
  • Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings.
  • Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.
  • Osama bin Laden did a summer school stint at Oxford.
  • 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta went to Hamburg University to study urban planning.
  • British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics graduate, was convicted of abducting and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl.

…read more…

Just a small correction to the above Tweet, via Yahoo Answers, “Osama Bin Laden is Rich???“:

  • You bet. When Mohammed (his father) died in a helicopter crash in 1968, his children inherited the billionaire’s construction empire. Osama bin Laden, then 13 years old, purportedly came into a fortune of some $300 million. (Sources: Defense Journal, and, Encyclopedia Britannica.)

WH Outs CIA Agent ~ Recalling the Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Debacle

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Compare the above remarks [around the 1:08 time marker] to that of the video of Richard Armitage [below-right])

What a difference a sitting President makes. I wonder if my old (“old” – in years and history) nemesis thinks of this? We may never know. Anyhew, the Obama White House released a name mistakenly included in a list meant for the media. The Washington Examiner explains WHY this is relevant.

Valerie Plame doesn’t deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter. It’s just that, discussing the issue at a Wednesday evening forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Plame seemed to view the outing of the CIA’s top spy on the front lines in the Afghan war as more of an embarrassment than an outrage.

“My understanding is … it was a military aide who compiled this list of those that were greeting the president when he came,” Plame said. “Colossally stupid, but I think it was inadvertent. It was an error … really stupid. The White House apparently has said that they’re going to do an investigation, and they’ll find someone who’s really embarrassed at the end of it.”

The leak, if that’s what it can be called, happened over the weekend as President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. In a routine email to the press, the administration included a name with the description “Chief of Station” after it — a clear reference to the ranking CIA official in Kabul. It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive assignment in a more dangerous place, and blowing the station chief’s cover — in an email to 6,000 reporters, no less — will surely have repercussions.

The White House quickly explained that a mistake had been made, but did not offer any details. Top officials announced that White House counsel Neil Eggleston, a veteran of many Washington investigations, will “look into” the matter. “It shouldn’t have happened,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re trying to understand why it happened. In fact, the chief of staff, Denis McDonough, asked the White House counsel to look into it, to figure out what happened and to make sure it won’t happen again.”

Many observers seem satisfied with the White House’s explanation that the incident was just a regrettable error. And that is indeed what it appears to be. But such assessments represent a remarkable change in tone from the discussion several years ago, when the George W. Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as part of a bitter fight over the origin and direction of the Iraq war. Back then, it was quite common to hear the words “traitor” and “treason” used to describe top Bush officials involved in the controversy.

There’s no doubt the Bush officials deliberately revealed Plame’s CIA connection, if not her name, to the press. But the Plame leak could be characterized as inadvertent in one sense: the leakers, both in the State Department and the White House, did not know that Plame’s status at the CIA was classified when they mentioned her to reporters. That is why no one was ever charged with leaking her identity; they did not knowingly and deliberately reveal classified information. So in that sense it was all a mistake. Yes, it was inadvertent, colossally stupid, an embarrassment — but it was a mistake.

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In fact… so relevant is this case, that Plame herself has hit the circuit (she and her husband gravitate towards press) saying there is no comparison. Hmmmm.

…This is a man [Colin Powell] who allowed the spending of millions of dollars in a witch-hunt of a law-enforcement investigation even while personally knowing that his own top aide had been the one who inadvertently leaked the name of a second-tier CIA agent with a dishonest and histrionic husband. One word from Colin Powell, and the “Valerie Plame” case would have come to an end with no prosecutions, but with a few days, maybe just one or two news cycles, of public admonishment of his office for its carelessness. But no… Powell remained silent, thus settling some score with vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and his boss, Vice President Richard Cheney — letting Libby twist in the wind for an alleged cover-up of a non-crime for which Libby himself wasn’t even responsible, but for which Powell’s aide Dick Armitage was culpable instead. (Libby was convicted on a highly dubious perjury charge, based on a years-old conversation with newsman Tim Russert that Russert remembered differently. This was the same Tim Russert whose own memory had been shown to be horrifically wrong in another major court case, but who suddenly was supposed to be perfectly inerrant. Meanwhile, famed newsman Bob Woodward produced notes that Woodward himself said might tend to support Libby’s recollection — but no matter.)…

(American Spectator ~ editors note: sounds the same to me. See also: “The Lost Scandal” and “Scooter Libby’s Bigger Picture“)

The New York Daily News reports the following:

Valerie Plame chided the Obama White House for being “colossally stupid” in accidentally releasing the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul.

“What an error of huge proportions with tremendous consequences,” she said Wednesday on CNN.

But Plame, the CIA operative outed during George W. Bush’s administration, warned against those drawing a “false equivalency” between her situation and the recent press office mistake.

“Apparently some low-level either military and diplomatic officials put the name down on this list that was given to a reporter who submitted it as a pool report,” she said of the Obama failure, whereas “my name was intended to be leaked in retaliation against my husband, who was a fierce critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq War.”

State Department official Richard Armitage is believed to have been responsible for leaking Plame’s status as a covert operative to the press in 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the federal investigation into the disclosure but no individual was actually convicted of leaking the classified information that blew Plame’s cover.

…read more…

Larry Elder discusses the Movie, “Fair Game,” and the real story of Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame:

Video Description:

Firstly, I want to than J. White (http://www.thevastconspiracy.com/), where the original audio file came from.

Secondly, while this is an old story and review of a 2010 movie, “Fair Game.” The White House’s recent outing of a CIA covert operative and how the media and White House reacted to it. Why? Because when the shoe was on the other foot, or more specifically, Bush’s foot, the media went MAD!

For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/