The News Without The Left’s Bias
14
Jul
Chris Matthews, on Wednesday’s Hardball, invited on recently defeated Republican Representative Bob Inglis to slam Matthews’ favorite targets, namely the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and after he got the requisite criticisms out of the South Carolina congressman of those entities asked him if he could explain how primary voters from his own party could nominate an Indian-American like Nikki Haley, even though they’ve "got a problem with a black president?" Matthews, clearly not grasping the concept that perhaps voters in South Carolina could cast their ballot based out of purely ideological and not racial motives, asked Inglis the following question:
How do you figure your state out? It’s pretty conservative obviously. It’s Strom Thurmond country in many ways and, and it has people like DeMint pretty far over and then people like Lindsey Graham who are sort of regular conservatives. But then you nominated, your party has nominated an Indian-American woman, Nikki Haley. Obviously an attractive candidate, she knows how to present herself obviously, but what’s that about? Is that just an interesting little aspect? "It’s okay to be Indian-American but we got a problem with this black president?" What’s that about? [audio available here]
Before Matthews ended his show on that stumper of a question, he egged on the soon to be former Representative Inglis to attack the Tea Party, Limbaugh and Palin, as seen in the following exchanges that were aired on the July 14 Hardball:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, the Tea Party has racked up big wins already in 2010. They scared Senator Arlen Specter out of the Republican primary and watched him lose as a Democrat. Former Alabama Democratic Congressman Parker Griffith did the exact opposite. He jumped into the Republican primary and lost down there. Tea Partiers ousted Senator Bob Bennett at the Republican state convention out in Utah. They ran Governor Charlie Crist right out of the Republican Senate primary in Florida. And the latest victim of the Tea Party is South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis who lost a Republican runoff just last month after getting hammered in town halls for voting for TARP and knocking down false rumors about death panels. He joins us right now. Congressman Inglis, I want to make sure everybody knows you’re not a RINO. You’ve got an 85 percent conservative record, you’ve got a five percent liberal record. You’re a conservative, right?
REP. BOB INGLIS: Right, I think it’s actually 93 percent ACU rating. Yeah, yeah.
MATTHEWS: Well I looked, I looked at it a couple years ago. So you’re up to date at ninety, ninety-what?
INGLIS: Ninety-three percent.
MATTHEWS: So you’re not conservative enough for South Carolina.
INGLIS: I needed that extra seven.
MATTHEWS: Oh my God! Well you told the Associated Press, quote, "I think we have a lot of leaders that are following those television and talk radio personalities and not leading us." We’ve had a little contest here, as you know, waiting for somebody. Well, you’re a lame duck now but maybe you count. But we’ve been waiting for somebody to say "I’m not really a ditto head. I don’t really follow Rush Limbaugh’s thinking. He’s not my leader." Are you ready to be the first?
INGLIS: Well I’ll tell ya-
MATTHEWS: Or are you still gonna hold back?
INGLIS: I don’t, I don’t follow Rush Limbaugh’s lead. You know, when, when I found out I didn’t? I was in six years and I was out of Congress for six years and I was listening to him one day and he’s making fun of people in cars who get high fuel efficiency and I thought, you know, Rush, that’s it. I turned the radio off.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
INGLIS: Because it didn’t fit with my dad who’s 87 years old. He’s my idea of conservative. He used to tell us, "Now, we gonna let off the gas at the Tarvers’ and you coast to our driveway," because he’s a conservative.
MATTHEWS: Well what happened to Teddy Roosevelt? Wasn’t he a great conservative in the Republican Party?
INGLIS: Yeah, absolutely.
MATTHEWS: A conservationist.
INGLIS: Yeah and so my, yeah and so my thought was, you know, listen, conservatism is saving resources, and, and what Rush was further making fun of is people driving electric cars with regenerative braking. I’m thinking, if I make the investment to get up the hill with my gas, why wouldn’t I want to generate electr
icity coming down the hill? I’m a conservative.
MATTHEWS: Rush, by the way, says a lot of things. He makes fun of anybody who tries to deal with conservation issues, which are traditionally conservative issues. He makes fun of all kinds of things.
…
MATTHEWS: You, you sir, strike me, as I hate to use the word, as someone who’s well-educated. I know you went to UVA Law School. Is that hurting you? Is - no I’m dead serious about this. Do you get hurt in the Republican Party now for having had a fine education? Do people think, look askance at you and say, "Oh he’s an egghead, he’s got a good degree from UVA" Is that a problem now, it’s better to be a yahoo? Well I mean to be really uneducated like Palin, to really be proud of the fact you don’t know anything?
INGLIS: There, there is a sense out there that ignorance is strength. But you know ignorance really is not strength.
MATTHEWS: Where did that come from? Where did that come from?
INGLIS: And here’s my view. I’m ignorant of a lot of things. There are a lot of things I need to know but if I choose to remain ignorant of those things, that’s when, that’s quite a different matter. So I have a sense of how much I don’t know and I need to find out a lot of information. I think that’s what education gives you is a sense of how much you don’t know and let’s go find it out.
MATTHEWS: Well, what do you make of Palin’s — without getting — she seems like, I guess a nice person as a human being but the question is, is she selling herself as someone - she calls it common sense. But I think what she’s really selling is "I don’t read books. I don’t read newspapers, Katie Couric. I don’t read magazines. I don’t need information. I have common conservative sense." What does that mean? To say you know things without having read it or learned anything? What do people know naturally?
…
MATTHEWS: Well, that fear that led people like Rick Perry of Texas to talk about secession, those old scare terms about race. I mean race is always an issue in America but to go back and rip that scab off? What’s that about? Why are people doing that? Is it their fear, fear of change or is it just anger or what?
INGLIS: Yeah well, I think that we, what we’re finding out here that in 2010 we have not fought the final fight against the scent of racism and won. We’re still in it. We’re still dealing with that problem. We always will be, but we need to extend grace to one another and have some honesty about it, understand that we are different, but let’s find a way to extend grace and get through it, and that’s - rather than womp up those fears and drive with misinformation reactions against people because of their party or their ethnicity. That’s a real problem and it-
MATTHEWS: How do you figure your state out? It’s pretty conservative obviously. It’s Strom Thurmond country in many ways and, and it has people like DeMint pretty far over and then people like Lindsey Graham who are sort of regular conservatives. But then you nominated, your party has nominated an Indian-American woman, Nikki Haley. Obviously an attractive candidate, she knows how to present herself obviously, but what’s that about? Is that just an interesting little aspect? "It’s okay to be Indian-American but we got a problem with this black president?" What’s that about?
14
Jul
On her Bravo TV show Tuesday night, left-wing comedian Kathy Griffin referred to Sen. Scott Brown’s two daughters as "prostitutes," and a CNN reporter apparently thought it hysterical. [Audio available here.]
Griffin, who was readying herself for a trip to Washington, DC to rally and drum up support for a repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," brought CNN reporters (husband and wife) Dana Bash and John King onto the show to "coach" her for handling Washington. Bash is a congressional correspondent for CNN, while King anchors the news hour "John King, USA."
When the couple showed Griffin a picture of Sen. Scott Brown and asked her to identify the figure, she responded "Scott Brown – who is a senator from Massachusetts, and has two daughters that are prostitutes."
Bash erupted with laughter, while King grimaced.
The incident is also ironic because Griffin was dropped from this year’s CNN New Year’s Eve program, due to her profanity-laced banter with Anderson Cooper last New Year’s Eve.
Griffin’s words were immediately followed by predictable on-screen text that read "Scott Brown’s daughters ARE NOT prostitutes." So, why did the network run her statement at all?
The foul-mouthed comedian had plenty of gems within the hour-long expose of her efforts in D.C., which included a gaffe that Roll Call picked up where she jokingly called Rep. James Clyburn a "queen."
While she was being "coached" by King and Bash, Griffin reminisced, "Remember when the Republicans tried to get that nutbag Sarah Palin to sound credible before the Vice Presidential debate?…. Well, that’s sort of like what John and Dana did for me."
When Griffin was "coached" by the PR experts at the Human Rights Campaign, before she ventured up to Capitol Hill to campaign for a repeal of DADT, she was shown videos of Sens. McCain and Chambliss arguing against the repeal.
"You f****** d***bags can suck it," Griffin spat about the senators. "F****** losers, old fartbags. You don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about."
Quotes from her Bravo! show, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List," which aired July 13, at 10 p.m. EDT, are provided below:
KATHY GRIFFIN: Since I don’t really know enough about Washington, DC, I called upon two powerful Washington insiders to help me out.
(Text) Dana Bash & John King
– DC correspondents for CNN
– Married on May 25th, 2008GRIFFIN: Luckily, they agreed to give me a crash course on everything DC.
GRIFFIN: Remember when the Republicans tried to get that nutbag Sarah Palin to sound credible before the Vice Presidential debate? They had a board, and ran flash cards to teach her the tough stuff? Like there’s both a North and South Korea. Well, that’s sort of like what John and Dana did for me."
GRIFFIN: Scott Brown, who is a senator from Massachusetts, and has two daughters that are prostitutes.
(Text) "And now, a brief message from Bravo’s legal team. Scott Brown’s daughters ARE NOT prostitutes. We now return you to your regularly scheduled negativity."
GRIFFIN: If Sarah Palin can do robo-calls, then any idiot can. I just need a hook. I need to say some s*** that Sarah Palin wouldn’t have the balls to say in her robo-call. Not even robo-balls.
GRIFFIN: (After having been shown clips of Sens. McCain and Chambliss arguing against a repeal of DADT) You f****** d***bags can suck it. F****** losers, old fartbags. You don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about.
GRIFFIN: (On cell phone) I’m meeting with a big "queen" named Jim Clyburn.
GRIFFIN: (To Rep. Barney Frank) Have you ever been involved in a "thruple?"
GRIFFIN: (to stranger in DC) Down with the Tea Party!
14
Jul
On Wednesday’s American Morning, CNN’s Ed Henry lauded former President Clinton as "one of the best politicians the Democrats have ever had…in the last quarter century" and touted his apparent credibility over current President Barack Obama. Henry also speculated that if "Al Gore…had used President Clinton more in 2000, he may have been president."
Substitute anchor Drew Griffin brought on the White House correspondent 26 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour to discuss the Obama White House’s intention to "aggressively use the former president on the campaign trail over the next few months. One party official familiar with the plan calls it a- quote, ‘no-brainer.’" During the second half of the segment, Griffin asked, "How can Bill Clinton do it all? I mean, he was picked by President Obama, basically, to rebuild Haiti. Now, they seem to be yanking him off of that and heading him out to the campaign trail, just to save the Democrats in the House in November."
Henry used the "no-brainer" quote from the unnamed Democratic Party official in his answer and immediately proceeded to use his superlatives about Clinton:
HENRY: Well, they’re careful here inside the White House to say that they don’t want to yank him off the Haiti job or any of his other important Clinton Foundation work, for example, altogether. They just want him to fit it in, because they say- look, as you noted, it’s a no-brainer.
This is one of the best politicians the Democrats have ever had- you know, in the last quarter century. And, as President Obama faces these credibility questions and all these various national polls right now, and as he tries to make this case that there is a real choice between the Democratic message and the Republican message, people inside the White House say there’s no one better at making that case, that contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans, than Bill Clinton. So they want to use him early and often, and they point to what happened in 2000 when Al Gore had trepidation about using Bill Clinton- sort of backfired on him, blew up in his face. If they had used President Clinton more in 2000, he may have been president, Drew.
Is Henry forgetting and/or brushing aside Clinton’s own credibility issues, such as his law license in Arkansas being suspended for five years after he lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky?
Griffin followed through by asking about the current Democratic occupant of the White House: "You know, I can’t resist, Ed, but what about using President Obama, the current president? He just doesn’t have the clout?" The CNN correspondent acknowledged Obama’s failing poll numbers, but then touted him as still being more or less equal to former President Clinton:
HENRY: …Clearly, he’s facing these credibility questions because of all these national polls you’ve been talking about. The ABC one yesterday saying 6 in 10 Americans basically don’t have faith in this president right now to make the right decisions. They’re pushing back on that, obviously, inside the White House, and saying- look, they’re going to send him out on the campaign trail. But there’s certain states like Arkansas where President Obama is just deeply unpopular- lost to John McCain there by double digits. And so, they see it as a one-two punch. President Obama will be out there in some states, Bill Clinton will go to other ones, Drew.
14
Jul
As most of the country was getting ready for the long July 4 weekend, Pajamas Media blogger and anti-terrorism consultant Patrick Poole wrote a post entitled "Blue Suede Jihad: Major Hamas Fundraiser in the Land of Elvis."
According to Poole, the Masjid Al-Noor mosque in Memphis posted an event entitled "A Weekend with Mohammed al-Hanooti" for the non-weekend dates of July 13 through 15 on its website. He has a screenshot of the mosque’s event page and says that it is genuine, however, local Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal’s Michael Lollar disputed Poole’s findings in an article entitled "Hamas fundraiser not speaking at mosque."
Lollar only addressed the side of the mosque’s administrators. According to Poole, Lollar made no attempt to contact him and Lollar’s language in the article was dismissive of Poole’s post, to the point of making it seem as though independently verifiable facts used by Poole were merely allegations and suppositions.
"Blogger Patrick Poole wrote on the Pajamas Media site (pajamasmedia.com) that Al-Hanooti had raised millions of dollars for Hamas . . ." Lollar wrote, seemingly ignoring the data Poole was able to gather on al-Hanooti, all of it from government documents.
That is just plain lazy reporting. The allegation that someone like al-Hanooti, with his very real ties to Hamas, could be on a fundraising tour of the mid-west for them, is one that ought to be taken seriously. Good reporting would have tried to get to the bottom of the controversy, decent reporting would have at least gotten a hold of Poole, but this was just plain lazy reporting.
While Poole’s post left out the chronology of events, al-Hanooti has a very interesting history and a tendancy to appear in legal cases involving terrorism and terrorist financing. A Palestinian born in Haifa, he came to the United States in 1978 and first came to the attention of law enforcement in the early 90’s, when he was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator at the trial of the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman. In 1993 the FBI learned from electronic surveillance that al-Hanooti attended a meeting of Hamas supporters and fundraisers in Philadelphia where they pledged to ensure the Oslo Accords failed. An FBI source said that al-Hanooti had raised "over six million US dollars" for Hamas by 1993. Additionally, al-Hanooti was Imam of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia from 1995 to 1999 and seems to have played a role in making it fertile ground for its later radical connections, including two of the September 11 hijackers, the Fort Hood shooter and Anwar al-Awlaki.
However, it is important to note that Hamas was not considered a terrorist organization for the purposes of American law until 1995 and there appears to be no evidence he raised money for Hamas since 1993, except for assisting in rasing money to pay for a Hamas leader’s legal defense.
None of this excuses the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization, regardless of weather a government explicitly marks it as such. Al-Hanooti has made radical statements and fundraised for Hamas in the past, though his current opinions are unknown and a repudiation of violence is always something to hope for from anyone.