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Brent Bozell: Top Ten Questions the Media Should Ask VP Joe Biden

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Biden

MRC – ALEXANDRIA, VA – For decades the liberal media have enjoyed poking fun at conservative politicians for their public gaffes, real or imagined. Dan Quayle, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin — these are just a few of the many conservatives parodied by the press. Vice-President Joe Biden is set to address the Democratic National Convention Wednesday evening. There will be many interviews conducted with him during this time. So in the interest of fair play — the news media are fair, aren’t they? — the Media Research Center has compiled a list of ten questions the media should pose to Joe Biden.

Questions we wish the liberal media would ask Biden

1. Last month, you made a racist comment to blacks that Republicans are going to “put y’all back in chains.”  Charlie Rangel said that your comment was “stupid.”  What does it feel like to be called “stupid” by Charlie Rangel?

2. In 2008, you turned to wheelchair-bound Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham, and told him to “stand up, Chuck, let’em see ya.” Had you ever said anything as asinine as that before?

3. In October of 2008, you said: “The number-one job facing the middle class… is a three-letter word: Jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.”  Is it a challenge for you to count past 3?

4. In 2010 you turned to President Obama after Obamacare passed and on live national television said, “This is a big f-ing deal.” Had you ever seen a big f-ing microphone before?

5. If the President had taken your advice to not go after Bin Laden, Bin Laden may still be alive today.  What other bizarro foreign policy advice have you given that, thank God, no one took?

6. In 2010 you mistakenly told Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen that his mother had passed.  When you were young, did you ever prank neighbors with dead mom jokes?

7. In June 2006, you said “You can’t go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” Did you ever try this theory in person?  In your judgment, do you think folks could learn how to model their Indian accents after Abu on the Simpson’s?

8. Then in January of 2007, you said “You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Since he was the first, what advice would you give to other inarticulate, dumb, dirty and ugly African Americans such as Clarence Thomas and Oprah Winfrey to help them clean up their act.

9. In October of 2011, when you said that if Republicans didn’t pass your jobs bill, “Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.” Was that fear mongering or just simply idiotic?

10. In 2008, you said: “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of theUnited States of America.”  Did you ever imagine you could be so right?

For more visit MRC

Anderson Cooper Crosses the Line

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Originally posted at Center for Security Policy By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Anderson Cooper closed one of five segments of his weeknightly CNN show that he recently devoted to attacking principally Rep. Michele Bachmann with a genuflection towards an iconic newsman, Edward R. Murrow.  He deployed against her the gauntlet Murrow threw down to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in March 1954: “The line between investigating and persecuting is a [very] fine one.”  If anyone has stepped over that line, however, it is Cooper himself, rather than the Minnesota congresswoman.

Night after night during the week of July 16th, the host of “Anderson Cooper 360” failed to meet even the most basic standards of investigative journalism.  The irony is that, in his ill-concealed persecution of Mrs. Bachmann, Cooper has serially engaged in precisely the practices he pillories her and others for allegedly using, by his account, to destroy the reputation of the Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Muslim-American woman named Huma Abedin.  Let us count the ways:

[list type="arrow"] [li]

  • Anderson Cooper insists that Michele Bachmann (who he singles out for most of his criticism, despite the fact that she was but one of five Members of Congress to raise concerns not only about Ms. Abedin’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, but those of a number of others the Obama administration has enlisted as officials, advisors and/or liaisons to “the Muslim community”) failed to do her homework. Yet, Cooper repeatedly showed his ignorance of the extensive evidence cited by the legislators, even as he mentioned the website where some of it resides: the Center for Security Policy’s online video course at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com.
  • As he accused Rep. Bachmann of playing fast and loose with the facts, Cooper repeatedly mischaracterized the nature of the legislators’ request for five federal inspectors general to conduct investigations.  He or his echo-chamber of exclusively like-minded guests complained that Ms. Abedin is accused of being a “spy” and engaging in “treason” and that she has been subjected to a groundless, bigoted and McCarthyite witch-hunt. Several of the reporters and interested parties who added color commentary (sometimes repeatedly) further demeaned Congresswoman Bachmann by asserting that she is simply engaging in partisan politics and fund-raising for her reelection campaign.
  • As with the Congresswoman and to a lesser extent her colleagues, Cooper also made a point of going after this columnist.  If anyone is guilty of “McCarthyism,” though, it is the journalistic poseur who specializes in shooting the messenger and buying into and tendentiously proclaiming that there are “no facts” supporting the unwanted message – rather than rigorously examining and accurately reporting on the vast amount of evidence that inconveniently does exist.
  • While portraying Huma Abedin as an innocent victim of smears, Cooper engaged in his own smearing – occasionally through his rants on the subject, often by citing others who have indulged in ad hominem attacks against the congresswoman and her team.  He repeatedly showcased such attacks by individuals in her own party, even though they were clearly were unfamiliar with the actual nature of the legislators’ concerns and the abundant grounds for raising them.
  • One of the prominent figures in this televised persecution of Michele Bachmann was the man who kicked it off:  Her colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota and the first Muslim Member of Congress.  As it happens, according to the public record (recently brilliantly distilled by counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole at PJ Media http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/rep-keith-ellison-rewrites-history-on-his-muslim-brotherhood-cair-ties/), Mr. Ellison has himself been closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood – a natty problem Rep. Bachmann has noted, to Cooper’s horror.

[/li] [/list]
So, the “360” host had Keith Ellison on to help deflect that charge.  When the congressman blithely denied that he was a Muslim Brother or, for that matter, that he even knew very much about the Brotherhood, well, that was good enough for crack investigative journalist Anderson Cooper.  Back to the persecution of Michele Bachmann, with Cooper egging on Minnesota’s Muslim congressman.[list type="arrow"] [li]

  • Anderson Cooper further discredited his claim to be an independent, let alone exacting, journalist by taking at face value the FBI’s assurances that it had not dealt with Muslim Brothers or other “extremists” in the recent purge of its training materials and files.  The evidence of that falsehood is readily available.  Yet, the FBI statement was taken – and presented – as though gospel by a credulous host whose only skepticism was reserved for why Michele Bachmann had been charged by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers with investigating the extent of the Brotherhood’s influence operations inside the Bureau.]
  • Perhaps most distressing was the service Anderson Cooper has provided to the Islamists by promoting the meme that inquiries about specific Muslims with demonstrable ties to the Muslim Brotherhood amount to attacks on all Muslims.  This plays into the victimhood mantra Islamists use to justify their jihadism undertaken ostensibly for the purpose of defending beleaguered co-religionists.

[/li] [/list]

Applying Cooper’s logic, every Muslim – even those whose associations (personal, familial, professional or other) with an organization like the Brotherhood that is sworn to our destruction clearly violate the government’s own guidelines for security clearances, to say nothing of the oath of office to support the Constitution and defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic – are to be given an automatic pass.  That may also be the view of the Obama administration, but it is a formula for disaster for the country.

There is a particular irony to Anderson Cooper’s, well, jihad against those who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood.  For an avowedly gay man, Anderson Cooper is rooting for the wrong team.  If the Islamists have their way here, he will not simply be on the wrong side of the line.  He’ll be toast.

America's 'Iron Lady'

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Originally posted at Center for Security Policy By Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Movie theaters across America have recently called to mind former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a woman whose visionary leadership and fortitude – particularly in the fight against Soviet Communism – earned her the sobriquet “the Iron Lady.”

Lady Thatcher’s partner in dispatching that toxic ideology to the “ash-heap of history,” Ronald Reagan, famously declared in 1961 – at a time when the USSR was still very much a going concern – that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  Today, it is threatened by another totalitarian ideology that some have aptly described as “communism with a god”: the supremacist Islamic doctrine known as shariah.

Fortunately, it turns out that, as we confront our time’s most imminent threat to freedom, we have found America’s Iron Lady: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.  Her Thatcheresque qualities are evident in the fearless and visionary leadership she is providing in opposing shariah’s most formidable champions, the Muslim Brotherhood.

In particular, Rep. Bachmann – whose training as a tax attorney has prepared her well for the painstaking business of studying and mastering arcane organizational, financial and other relationships that are at the core of the stealthy subversion the Brotherhood calls “civilization jihad.”  Her experience raising 28 of her own and foster children has steeled her against the name-calling and worse that have met her efforts to bring those skills to bear to expose and defeat the jihadists, wherever they may be.

Good thing.  For, at the moment, Michele Bachmann is not facing mere name-calling but outright character assassination.  She has been singled out for special treatment despite the fact that she was one of five Members of Congress (the others being Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia and Tom Rooney of Florida) who had the temerity to send five federal Inspectors General formal requests for investigations into Muslim Brotherhood influence operations inside our government – a threat every bit as dangerous as was the communist subversion of a generation ago.

It is, of course, no accident that Mrs. Bachmann is being subjected to such vilification by the Islamists, their allies on the Left and in the establishment media’s amen chorus.  As a principled, articulate and wildly popular Tea Party and conservative leader, she is a prime target forelectoral defeat by her political foes.  These include her fellow Minnesotan, Rep. Keith Ellison, the “first Muslim congressman” who launched the initial attack on our Iron Lady.  More on him in a moment.

Regrettably, the Minnesota congresswoman has also been savaged by prominent figures in her own party.  Some have been motivated by a desire to exonerate one of the individuals identified in thefive legislators’ letter to the State Department’s Inspector General: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin.  Others seem determined to deflect or at least deny the problem of which she appears to be but one example and a symptom:  There are individuals with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood inside or at least influencing the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, as well as Foggy Bottom.

With respect to the former, long-time federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted in a brilliant expose posted at National Review Online on July 21, the question is not whether Ms. Abedin has committed a crime but should she have a security clearance?  The State Department’s own guidelines would appear to deny access to classified information to a person who has, as she does through living and deceased family members, “foreign associations that could create…a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion.”  [(For more on those troubling associations and their implications for U.S. policy, see a new Center for Security Policy report entitled “Ties That Bind? The Views and Agenda of Huma Abedin’s Islamist Mother” (http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19045.xml).]

With respect to efforts to dismiss as “dangerous” or baseless concerns about a possible, far-larger problem with individuals whohave connections to the Muslim Brotherhood shaping U.S. policy toward that organization and enabling its rising power, what can one say?  There is abundant evidence that indicates such concerns are warranted (including that found in Parts 8 and 9 of the Center for Security Policy’s online curriculum at www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com – a resource drawn upon by the five legislators).  Unless and until the critics – on Capitol Hill, in the media and elsewhere – perform the sort of due-diligence that has characterized the approach taken by Mrs. Bachmann and her colleagues, their authority on the matter must be questioned.

That applies particularly to Keith Ellison who claims not to know much about the Muslim Brotherhood, let alonehave ties to it. Counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole, however, shreds such assertions in a July 22 article at PJMedia (http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/rep-keith-ellison-rewrites-history-on-his-muslim-brotherhood-cair-ties/) that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that he, too, has – as Rep. Bachmann has observed – myriad, longstanding associations with Muslim Brotherhood organizations.  These include what the government has established is the Brotherhood’s “overt arm” in America, the Muslim American Society (which paid for Mr. Ellison’s 2008 religious pilgrimage (hajj) to Saudi Arabia), and the Council on American Islamic Relations.  CAIR was proven twice in federal court to be a front for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian franchise, the designated terrorist organization Hamas.

Michelle Bachmann’s response to her critics is vintage Thatcher: “I will not be silenced.”  We cannot allow America’s Iron Lady or her courageous colleagues to be silenced – or otherwise punished for their needed leadership in countering the Muslim Brotherhood.

Center for Security Policy Response to Senator McCain's Statement on Muslim Brotherhood

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CENTER RESPONDS TO SEN. McCAIN ON MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
INVITES DR. SALEHA ABEDIN TO DISCUSS HER POLICY POSITIONS
 
July 18, 2012,Washington, D.C.: Senator John McCain weighed in today on an intensifying controversy concerning the influence being exercised within the U.S. government by Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals and organizations.   In his remarks, the Arizona legislator assailed five of his House colleagues – Reps. Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Rooney – and an online video curriculum produced by the Center for Security Policy, The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com).
Unfortunately, in so doing, Sen. McCain made clear that he: had not actually reviewed the curriculum; was unfamiliar with its extensive documentation of a stealthy “civilization jihad” being mounted against this country, its civil society institutions and government; and misrepresented its findings.  By contrast, with the benefit of that resource and their own extensive research, the Representatives wrote the State Department Inspector General, Amb. Harold Geisel, making the factual observation that his agency has recently adopted a number of policies that are “enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”  They went on to characterize those policies as ones that are “deeply problematic and may even pose security risks for this nation, its people and interests.”  (The five Members of Congress also sent similar letters to the IGs of the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.)
The legislators requested that the Inspector General “conduct a formal investigation or evaluation of the extent to which Muslim Brotherhood-tied individuals and entities have helped achieve the adoption of these State Department actions and policies or are involved in their execution.”
One of those actions was the Secretary of State’s February 2010 visit to Dar Al-Hekma College in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.  On that occasion, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonstrated her support for the views and achievements of the college’s founder, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin, the mother of Mrs. Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin.
In the interest of exploring Dr. Abedin’s policy recommendations, the Center for Security Policy today extended to her the attached invitation to participate in a dialogue.  A particular focus of this dialogue would be to illuminate attitudes towards shariah espoused by the organization with which Dr. Abedin has long been associated: the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child.  She has also been identified as a leader in Saudi Arabia of the Muslim Sisterhood.
Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. said, “Congresswoman Bachmann and her colleagues have rendered a tremendous public service by raising an alarm about the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘civilization jihad.’  Far from being chastised for doing so, by Sen. McCain or others, they should be applauded and aided in their efforts to have the extent of Brotherhood influence operations properly investigated by Inspectors General and/or congressional committees.  We very much hope that a conversation with Dr. Abedin will help inform such deliberations.”

The Center’s invitation letter to Dr. Abedin:
CSP-invitation-to-Dr.-Abedin-of-IICWC-18-July-2012

About the Center for Security Policy
 
The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.
 
For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.

Congressional Leaders Call for Investigations of Muslim Brotherhood Penetration of the Obama Administration

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Washington, DC, June 14, 2012:Five influential Members of Congress called yesterday for the inspectors general (IGs) of government departments with national security responsibilities to investigate whether their agencies are being subjected to influence operations mounted as part of what the Muslim Brotherhood calls its “civilization jihad.”  This initiative holds out hope that a grave, and largely unremarked, threat may thus be recognized and thwarted in time.

The authors of letters sent to the IGs for the Departments of State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligenceare:[list type="arrow"] [li]

  • Rep. Michele Bachman, a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairwoman of the House Tea Party Caucus
  • Rep. Trent Franks, Chairman of the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution a member of the House Armed Services Committee
  • Rep. Louie Gohmert, Vice Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security
  • Rep. Tom Rooney, Deputy Majority Whip and member of the House Armed Services Committee
  • Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee’s   Oversight Subcommittee; and

[/li] [/list]

In a joint press statement, each of these congressional leaders expressed profound concern about the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the need to understand that threat here in the United States.  What is more, they cited in their letters evidence of the penetration of Brotherhood operatives and allies inside the Obama administration, and examples of policies that appear to have been influenced as a result.
The legislators explicitly draw upon documentation of that evidence contained in Parts 8 and 9 the Center for Security Policy’s new, ten-part online video curriculum: The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com).
Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. said:
“These five key legislators are to be commended for their exemplary leadership on a matter of utmost peril to this country – namely, the stealthy effort being made by avowed enemies of this country, the Muslim Brotherhood, to destroy us ‘from within.’  Their request for the five inspectors general to conduct investigations of the Brotherhood’s progress toward that end – and report back within ninety days – will hopefully be seconded by others in both parties and be swiftly addressed by the IGs, given their responsibility for conducting such independent inquiries within executive branch agencies.  The Center for Security Policy’s extensive research, and the online course that presents it, shows those inquiries are fully warranted and urgently needed – as are, for that matter, corresponding investigations by the Congress, as well.”

The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.

For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.
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Bachmann backs Rohrer for U.S. Senate

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From the Harrisburg Patriot-News:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Rohrer added Minnesota Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to his growing list of high profile endorsements Wednesday, according to a campaign news release.

Though not endorsed by the state GOP, Rohrer had led in most polls until better-financed candidate Tom Smith recently began running television ads.

But Rohrer created a splash last weekend when former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed the former Berks County state representative in person at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, an annual gathering of commonwealth conservatives.

Rohrer told reporters during the conference that more heavy-hitter endorsements were coming and delivered Wednesday with Bachmann.

“Our campaign is gaining significant momentum and support from conservatives all over the country,” said Rohrer. “I am proud that conservative leaders like Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain have boldly backed my race against two candidates who were members of the Democratic Party before conveniently changing their party alliance prior to this election.”

Herman Cain To Deliver Tea Party State of the Union Response

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Sacramento, CA – Tea Party Express, the nation’s largest tea party political action committee, is announcing that Herman Cain will be delivering the Tea Party State of the Union response at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the evening of January 24th, 2012.

Sal Russo, Chief Strategist of the Tea Party Express, said, “We are excited to have Herman Cain deliver the 2nd Tea Party State of the Union response next week. Americans are fed up with the Washington politics that fail to address America’s fiscal woes. The Tea Party Express has called for reducing the size, cost and intrusiveness of the federal government, and we have stood strongly for pro-growth policies to get the economy growing and job creation increased.

“We are enthusiastic that a successful conservative governor like Mitch Daniels of Indiana will be giving the Republican response. I know that both Governor Daniels and Mr. Cain will contribute important ideas for the future of our country.

“Herman Cain has been a steadfast advocate for the values of the Tea Party and the practical solutions needed to solve the problems that face our nation. By following President Obama, Mr. Cain will have an opportunity to square off with the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Whether it is a flat tax, a fair tax or a combination of the two, reforming the tax code must be a priority. Americans want straight talk and honest solutions, and Herman Cain will deliver a pro-growth message strongly and clearly,” Russo concluded.

The Tea Party Express hosted the first ever Tea Party State of the Union Response last year with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.