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‘The Undefeated’ Review: Doing the Job the Corrupt MSM Won’t

by John Nolte     
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/
June 6, 2011

What an indictment of the mainstream media that in order to present to the public the missing pieces of a major political figure’s governing record, an independent filmmaker has to drop a cool million of his own dollars. While our corrupt journalist-class is (at this very moment) out trashing Governor Palin’s children, blaming her for their own acts of public urination and proving they know nothing about Paul Revere (or Google), writer/director Steve Bannon is putting the final touches on “The Undefeated” (this is a review of a rough cut), a feature-length documentary that does the MSM’s job for them — tells the intentionally ignored and buried stories of Sarah Palin’s two decades as an unconventional but very effective public official. Unless you’ve read the Governor’s autobiography “Going Rogue,” anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty will find it impossible to sit through this film and not ask themselves, “Why haven’t I been told this?”

Broken into a series of chapters that focus solely on Palin’s political career, the film itself opens with a jarring (in a good way) montage of bitterly hostile celebrities who obviously don’t have enough humanity of their own to see the same in a mother of five. Among others, Bill Maher, Rosie O’Donnell, Matt Damon, Joy Behar, David Letterman, and comedian Louis CK lash out at this woman and her family (including Trig, her Down Syndrome son) in jaw-droppingly cruel and sexual ways that would surely garner an R-rating (there will be an unrated and PG-13 version released). Even though part of my job is to track this celebrity venom and nothing I saw was new, the sheer volume of hate still takes your breath away. Bannon’s answer to this is one of the film’s more effective moments: a credit sequence over home movies where we watch Sarah Palin — someone’s little girl — grow up. Since none of those celebrities were born with a shame-gene, you almost have to feel ashamed for them.

From here the narrative smartly avoids the personal biographical beats of Palin’s life and jumps directly into her life as a political figure. Bannon secured the audio rights to “Going Rogue” which allows Palin herself to tell much of her own story and right off the bat we’re treated to one of those inconvenient facts the MSM ignores. What inspired this blue collar, hockey mom married to an oil worker to get into politics was the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez environmental catastrophe. The oil companies clearly held too much power in Alaska and a seed was planted that would eventually grow into the woman currently giving the GOP establishment and corrupt media fits as she tours America in a bus.

There’s nothing partisan about “The Undefeated.” The Republican establishment and Big Oil take a well-deserved beating from open to close. If anything, they come off worse than the Left who are really only guilty of being their awful selves. It’s just a fact that throughout most of her career (and the film’s second act) — as Palin moved from Wasilla Mayor to Chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to Governor — she fearlessly and effectively battled her own party and Big Oil almost every step of the way. I don’t want to get too wonky in a film review, but as you watch this particular section you’re going to learn as much about the MSM as you do the Governor. Try to imagine how many elite, blow-dried souls Lucifer was able to secure the rights to in order for them to gain the sway needed to convince the public that an undistinguished half-term Senator most famous for voting present was more qualified to be President than one of the most successful and popular governor’s in the country.

——

An important theme that develops is Palin’s unwavering principles. That doesn’t mean she’s not willing to work with the other side. In fact, just the opposite is true. But during an interview in one of the many pieces of heretofore unseen news footage we’re treated to, Palin says it best (paraphrasing): “A politician has a choice between eating well and sleeping well.” In her public life, Palin has resigned from two offices; once as Chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation in order to call attention to corruption and most famously as Alaska’s governor. The former put her at odds with the GOP establishment and cost her middle-class family a six-figure salary.

The latter cost her a ton of political capital.

In both cases, it’s quite obvious the Governor understood that the consequences of her stepping down would be personally devastating, but in both cases she chose to sleep rather than eat well. Sure, Palin could have hung on as Governor and avoided taking fire as a “quitter” even from some on our side, but at what price to the State of Alaska? A never-ending stream of frivolous ethics complaints not only threatened to bankrupt Palin’s family but had also frozen the government’s ability to get anything done. A mercenary politician more concerned with his her own personal ambitions would’ve held on to that office at any cost (to everyone else). Instead, Palin made the kind of sacrifice you just don’t see those in power make. Should Palin choose to run for president in 2012 there’s no way around the fact that her decision to step down as Governor will be a major headwind — which means that those of us looking for leaders willing to make unpopular choices for the greater good should appreciate her decision all the more. 

Leftists in the MSM (but I repeat myself) have already complained about “The Undefeated” being commissioned by Palin (a lie) and that it skips over issues like the nonsense-scandal that was TrooperGate. But the very fact that everyone reading this already knows about TrooperGate answers that criticism. “The Undefeated” is about filling in the gaping holes the corrupt MSM intentionally dug. The documentary is new information for anyone still stupid enough to watch the Nightly News and read Politico. Furthermore, unlike the MSM, Bannon makes no secret of his biases. He’s not weaponizing objectivity or trying to con anyone. But if the early response is any indication, critics intend to do to the film what they to do to Palin: ignore substance at all costs.

Among others, thanks to Andrew Breitbart, Kate Obenshain, Tammy Bruce, and Mark Levin, “The Undefeated” closes strong — especially when Breitbart attacks GOP establishment “eunuchs” who to this very day lack the “chivalry” and courage to fight those who seek to destroy this woman in unprecedented ways. But even larger-than-life personalities can’t outshine the Governor herself. In a series of well-selected clips from recent speeches, there’s Sarah where she always is: alone on a stage in the middle of the fight talking about her love for America, her belief in liberty, and fearlessly giving hell to whoever has it coming … regardless of party.

Will “The Undefeated” change minds? I think it will, especially among open-minded Independents who have yet to be introduced to “this” Sarah Palin. Thankfully, due to New Media and a filmmaker willing to put a million of his own dollars where his mouth is, we can now get the truth out there using our own Bus Tour — our own message-delivery device that works around the GOP eunuchs and corrupted MSM.

With any luck, the season of watching the insufferable choke on a hockey mom’s exhaust has only begun.

“The Undefeated” is a comprehensive and at times moving must-see for anyone interested in the truth about Sarah Palin.

Remembering D-Day with Ike and Reagan

By Paul Kengor on 6.6.11 @ 6:08AM
The American Spectator
http://spectator.org

For me, Memorial Day happens twice within a week. The first, the official holiday at the end of May, is quickly reinforced a week later, every June 6: D-Day.

Of all the wartime anniversaries, none strike me quite like D-Day -- the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of France, the final push to defeat Nazi Germany. It was June 6, 1944, a date that sticks like December 7, like July 4, like September 11. The mix of extreme sorrow and triumph has been unforgettably replicated on film by Steven Spielberg in the stunning opening of Saving Private Ryan.
What must it have been like to be among those first waves at the beaches? Indescribable, simply indescribable.

When I think of D-Day, I always think of two presidents, neither of which were president at the time: Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. What they had to say about the event was profound.

Ike was Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, a long way from humble beginnings as a Kansas farm boy. He gave the final order to send an armada of 5,000 ships, 12,000 aircraft, and 155,000 soldiers -- the largest amphibious assault in history. The morning prior, the forecast wasn't good. Ike asked each of his subordinates what they thought about proceeding.

"Ike wasn't taking a vote," recorded Stephen Ambrose, the late WWII historian who was also Ike's biographer. "Ike asked all 14 men in the room. Seven of them said to postpone and seven of them said to go ahead." Everyone stared at General Eisenhower for what seemed like forever. Finally, Ike said simply, "Okay, let's do it."

Ike then wrote a note to himself: "Our landings… have failed."

If failure resulted, Ike would take the blame. Of course, failure didn't result, though a lot of horror came in the process. The men who battled on those beaches sampled their own taste of Armageddon. It was hell on earth.

Ike never forgot those boys. When he visited Omaha beach 20 years later -- by then an ex-president as well as an ex-general-- he told Walter Cronkite: "You know, Walter, I come here and the thought that overwhelms me is all the joy that Mamie and I get from our grandchildren. I look at these graves out here and I just can't help but think of all the families in America that don't have the joy of grandchildren."

Another 20 years later still, June 6, 1984, another president, Ronald Reagan, visited those beaches, and gave two memorable speeches. The first paid tribute to the men who did return to that beach, and the second acknowledged a man who didn't return.

The first speech was given at 1:20 PM at the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc, France, where a group of American veterans of Normandy had re-convened for a special ceremony. Reagan stated:

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs….

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers -- the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

As Reagan spoke, these "boys of Pointe du Hoc," by then men in their 60s, dabbed their eyes with their sleeves. Indeed, they were the guys who took those cliffs, who helped free a continent, and who ended a vicious war that killed 50 million.

The second Reagan speech that day came at 4:33 p.m. at the Omaha Beach Memorial. It was most poignant because of Reagan's discussion of a veteran who never made it back to Normandy, a Private Robert Zanatta. Said Reagan:

Some who survived the battle of June 6, 1944, are here today. Others who hoped to return never did.

"Someday, Lis, I'll go back,'' said Private First Class Peter Robert Zanatta, of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and first assault wave to hit Omaha Beach. "I'll go back, and I'll see it all again. I'll see the beach, the barricades, and the graves.''

Those words of Private Zanatta come to us from his daughter, Lisa Zanatta Henn, in a heart-rending story about the event her father spoke of so often….

When men like Private Zanatta and all our allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as liberators….

Lisa Zanatta Henn began her story by quoting her father, who promised that he would return to Normandy. She ended with a promise to her father, who died 8 years ago of cancer: "I'm going there, Dad, and I'll see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments. I'll see the graves, and I'll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I'll feel all the things you made me feel through your stories and your eyes. I'll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let anyone else forget. And, Dad, I'll always be proud.''

Through the words of his loving daughter, who is here with us today, a D-day veteran has shown us the meaning of this day far better than any president can. It is enough for us to say about Private Zanatta and all the men of honor and courage who fought beside him four decades ago: We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

The video of the Zanatta speech, as well as the Pointe du Hoc speech, need to be seen (click hereand here for highlights). This article can't do justice to the image of Lisa, her mother and brothers weeping as the president of the United States shared Private Zanatta's words with the world, and as Reagan got choked up delivering them.

This past weekend, I spoke to Tony Dolan, Reagan's chief speechwriter, who wrote such classics as the Evil Empire speech and the Westminster Address, among hundreds of others. What are his recollections about that day in June 1984?

"The irony," says Dolan, "is that the Dublin speech was the big speech." Dolan was referring to Reagan's speech to the Irish Parliament on June 4, which indeed was a remarkable speech, albeit largely forgotten. Instead, what stole the show during Reagan's trip to Europe came not in Ireland but France.

"Peggy did Pointe du Hoc," says Dolan, pointing to Peggy Noonan, the gifted speechwriter. When I asked Dolan if he had written the second speech, he typically deferred credit: "It wasn't my speech, Paul. It was Reagan's."

I asked Dolan about the Zanatta reference. He recalled that he had struggled with that speech until "around 11 or midnight" late one evening. And then, "I found this letter from this gal [Lisa Zanatta]. I knew how she felt. Her dad was always going to go back [to Normandy], but he never made it."
Dolan worked the letter into the speech. "I was on it until 4:00 or 5:00 AM. The next morning, I was driving across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and I thought, 'Gee, someone is going to turn this into a NATO speech!'"

Fortunately, no one did. Dolan knew what appealed to Reagan, and Reagan, who had already exchanged letters with Lisa Zanatta, wasn't about to let it turn into a NATO speech -- not with a story like Private Zanatta.

"I played a game with myself called, 'Choke-the-Gipper-up,'" says Dolan with a laugh. No matter how sentimental the thought, the Gipper usually delivered it flawlessly, the consummate communicator behind the camera. But not this time. "I got him on this one," says Dolan.

He sure did. "Ronald Reagan was so profoundly moved by this gal and her words," adds Dolan. "And think about this, Paul: There was something about him [Reagan] that made her write to him. What was it?"

Perhaps it was that Reagan had what Ike had: He looked at Normandy and he saw not NATO, or strategic plans, troop formations, tactical maneuvers, battlefield gamesmanship, or foreign-policy theory. He saw children, grandchildren, and men like Private Zanatta and the boys of Pointe du Hoc.
And that's who we, too, should see on every anniversary of Normandy. This June 6, let's remember.

    

- Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and the newly released Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

A Great and Terrible Day

D-Day showed the greatness of the American people.

By Jim Lacey
http://www.nationalreview.com
June 6, 2011

"Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. 'Full victory-nothing else' to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe." Eisenhower is meeting with US Co. E, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment (Strike), photo taken at Greenham Common Airfield in England about 8:30 p.m. on June 5, 1944.

“Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Four days after Pearl Harbor, Hitler committed one of the most monumental blunders in history. Rushing back to Berlin from his Prussian headquarters on December 11, he went before the Reichstag and, in a short 334-word speech, declared war on the United States. In this single act of suicidal hubris he sealed the fate of the Third Reich.

Despite still being locked in a brutal war against Great Britain and the Soviet Union, when presented with the opportunity to declare war against a nation capable of producing as many munitions in one year as Germany could in five, Hitler did not hesitate or flinch. Hitler was certainly aware of America’s production potential, for he had written about it in Mein Kampf. Despite this knowledge, he remained unimpressed with American military potential. In 1940, he had told Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov that the United States would not be a threat to Germany for decades — “1970 or 1980 at the earliest.” This was a colossal misjudgment, but not Hitler’s only one. Not unlike other dictators, Hitler believed it was impossible to transform pampered American youths into formidable soldiers.
Only two a half years after Hitler’s war declaration, a mighty American army was poised to cross the English Channel and bring Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” to an end 988 years ahead of schedule. At Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s disposal was a superbly trained American and British army he believed capable of fulfilling Gen. George Marshall’s order to “reenter the continent of Europe and defeat the Nazi enemy.”

To accomplish this task, American industry, which an earlier German general had called the “pitiless beast,” had provided everything American and British forces required. On June 5, 1944, a vast armada of more than 5,000 vessels carried some 150,000 troops and 30,000 vehicles across the English Channel and onto the Normandy beaches. In the air, 800 aircraft, launching from nine British airfields, deposited more than 12,500 paratroopers onto flooded fields and towns behind the Normandy beaches.

Soon after, another 300 aircraft struck directly at the beaches themselves, dropping more than 13,000 bombs. Unfortunately, these bombers released their loads seconds late, killing a number of hapless cows but doing no damage to the German fortifications awaiting the Allied landings. These bombers, however, represented only a small fraction of the air armada that had been pounding German cities, industry, and transport centers for over two years. In just the two months prior to the invasion, the Allies flew 14,000 missions in support of D-Day operations, losing 12,000 airmen and 2,000 aircraft in the process. They lost another 127 planes on D-Day, and by the end of the Normandy campaign 28,000 airmen were dead.

Less than a week after the invasion, all five of the Normandy invasion beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold Sword, and Juno — were secure. Within the beachheads were 340,000 troops — about the same as the population of Tampa or New Orleans — more than 50,000 vehicles and some 100,000 tons of supplies. But that was only the beginning of a massive military machine that landed tens of thousands troops and 20,000 tons of supplies every day. America’s “pitiless” industrial might, once turned towards war, had transformed a military that barely ranked in the global top 20 in 1940 into a mortal threat to Hitler’s Germany. Moreover, it had done so 25 years earlier than Hitler thought possible.
Everything industry produced, however, was useless unless it was wielded by intrepid soldiers, competently led. And it was in this regard that Hitler made his grossest miscalculation. The so-called pampered soldiers of democracy proved to be more than a match for the tyrannical armies of Nazi Germany and Japan (often forgotten is that as the Americans were crossing the English Channel another invasion force was leaving Pearl Harbor, heading for the Japanese-held island of Saipan).

I have had several opportunities to tour the Normandy beaches, and have always walked away awestruck. Standing at the 150-foot summit of Pointe du Hoc, one can only wonder at the bravery of the American Rangers who scaled that sheer under intense and constant German fire. I still find it unfathomable that unprotected infantrymen ran, stumbled, and crawled across 1,000 yards of open sand at Omaha Beach that was being swept by dozens of German machineguns, each firing over a 1,000 rounds a minute.

Only the fact that the courageous soldiers of the 1st and 29th Infantry divisions did somehow actually cross that deadly beach makes it possible to believe such a thing was doable. Still, it was a near-run thing. The first wave to hit the beach was nearly annihilated. The official report of one company in the 29th Division captures the action, if not the mind-numbing hell the soldiers experienced:

As the first men jumped, they crumpled and flopped into the water. Then order was lost. It seemed to the men that the only way to get ashore was to dive head first in and swim clear of the fire that was striking the boats. But, as they hit the water, their heavy equipment dragged them down and soon they were struggling to keep afloat. Some were hit in the water and wounded. Some drowned then and there . . . But some moved safely through the bullet fire to the sand and, finding they could not hold there, went back in to the water and used it as cover, only their heads sticking out. Those who survived kept moving with the tide, sheltering at times behind underwater obstacles and in this way they finally made their landings.

Within ten minutes of the ramps being lowered, Company A had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and Sergeant had been killed or wounded . . . It had become a struggle for survival and rescue. The men in the water pushed wounded men ashore, and those who had reached the sands crawled back into the water pulling others to land to save them from drowning, in many cases only to see the rescued men wounded again or to be hit themselves. Within twenty minutes of striking the beach Company A had ceased to be an assault company and had become a forlorn little rescue party bent upon survival and the saving of lives.

The next wave was similarly destroyed. At the moment of crisis, Gen. Omar Bradley contemplated abandoning Omaha Beach and inserting the following waves on Utah or the British beaches. But then word arrived that small packets of men were crossing the beach and climbing the bluffs beyond. Bradley kept his nerve and fresh troops continued piling onto the beach.

With many of the junior leaders killed and wounded in the first minutes of the fighting, senior leaders filled the gaps. Col. George Taylor and Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota became platoon leaders. As Taylor walked along the beach encouraging soldiers to stand and move forward, he uttered the famous phrase: “There are two kinds of soldiers on this beach. Those who are dead and those who are about to die. So let’s get the hell off the damned beach!”
Dutch Cota, whom witnesses called utterly fearless, strode the beach chomping on a cigar, seemingly unconcerned by the machinegun rounds striking all around him. Finding a Ranger battalion commander, he told him that he expected “the Rangers to lead the way,” a phrase that remains the Rangers’ motto to this day. As Cota walked off, the Rangers started moving. Cota continued along the beach, encouraging, cajoling, and pleading with small packets of men to move forward, often telling them “They might as well die inland as on this godforsaken beach.” In the end, it was left to Cota himself to grab a rifle and rush through a gap in the barbed wire, yelling: “Follow me.” Seeing his example, nearby men mustered their courage, picked themselves up, and followed.

In this way, the Americans got off the beach and pierced Hitler’s Atlantic wall.

On Utah Beach, the 4th Infantry Division did not run into the meat grinder their brothers faced on Omaha. But the first waves had landed over two kilometers from where they had planned. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. simply informed his subordinate commanders, “We will start the war from here.”

By nightfall, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more than 100,000 had made it ashore. Eight American divisions were moving inland to face 55 German divisions already in France. Over the next few weeks, the Allies would fight off fierce German counterattacks, and it was not until late July that the Americans broke free of the Norman bocage and began their race across France. Much hard fighting lay ahead, but ultimate success was assured by the courage and sacrifice of the men who stormed the Normandy beaches 67 years ago today.

If ever you find yourself in France, please try to visit the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. There you will find the beautifully maintained graves of 9,386 Americans, all of them facing west, toward America. There lie those of the greatest generation who made the ultimate sacrifice. Few places offer a better setting for contemplating the cost of freedom. But it is just as incredible to ponder the fact that America could then and can now produce the men and women to face such a challenge.

— Jim Lacey is the professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. He is the author of Keep From All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II.

Targets Down’ Review: Bob Hamer Hits the Bullseye

by Mark Tapson     
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/
June 5, 2011

Working undercover meant more than a fake driver’s license and a fictitious name. It was living life as a liar for hours, days, even months at a time. It meant becoming one of them without becoming one of them. Distance offered detachment, but when you went undercover, it became personal. It was getting close to people you will ultimately betray and probing the darkest side of humanity, including your own. Unlike Hollywood, there were no retakes; a botched line, a missed mark, a mistake could mean instant death. Matt Hogan walked in the flames many times; he experienced the fire. — From Targets Down, by Bob Hamer

“Write what you know” is the first and most basic advice every aspiring creative writer tries to take to heart. Like all writing advice, this is easier said than done, and few novelists make that formula work more successfully and naturally than Bob Hamer, author of last year’s Enemies Among Us and the new Targets Down.

Undercover FBI agent Matt Hogan, the fictional protagonist of both thrillers, bears a striking resemblance to his creator, who spent 26 years as a street agent for the FBI, usually undercover. Hamer, also a Marine Corps vet, relates that remarkable quarter-century backstory in his engrossing, sometimes shocking first book, The Last Undercover: The True Story of an FBI Agent’s Dangerous Dance with Evil.

In his capacity as an undercover agent, he walked convincingly in the flames with drug dealers, pedophiles, gangs, international arms dealers, and killers. Hamer brings this gritty experience to bear on every page of his novels, lending them a degree of detailed authenticity that’s unusual in the thriller genre. No less a thriller authority than Vince Flynn confirms this, having said of Hamer that he “delivers realism only an undercover FBI agent can bring.”

No-nonsense man’s man Matt Hogan is one of the most genuine heroes you’ll find in the genre. He’s no superhuman Bourne or Bond, but a refreshingly real-life hero of the kind that actually fills the ranks of American law enforcement – standup patriots who put their lives on the line to take down the bad guys, but whose work consists more of paperwork drudgery than flashy gunplay or the bedding of bombshells.

Hogan gets his share of action too, but Hamer’s action scenes are also grounded in reality and not cartoonish - as are his plots. In Enemies Among Us, Hogan goes undercover to investigate a charity suspected of funding Islamic terrorists (that’s right, Islamic terrorists, not Homeland Security’s usual suspects: disgruntled veterans and violent, racist Tea Partiers). In Targets Down, Hogan gets down-and-dirty in the real-world swamp of Russian organized crime, neo-Nazis, sex trafficking, and a jihadist with a plan to make 9/11 seem “like a mere footnote in our history books.” Not a rogue CIA program or evil capitalist is to be found between the covers of either book.

Bob Hamer

His page-turners are smoothly and naturally written, and laced with plenty of humor. They’re peopled with characters, not caricatures. Unheard of in contemporary fiction, some of these characters are actually religious and attend church, and are not portrayed mockingly for it. And (surprisingly, for an author who would kick my butt for suggesting that he’s in touch with his feminine side) even Hamer’s female characters are well-drawn, not simply sexy window dressing – like Hogan’s wife Caitlin, a grade-school teacher who keeps him grounded with her quiet strength and Christian faith.

Hamer’s real-life undercover experience was useful preparation for more than just his novels, as he moved on from the FBI to deal with even sleazier and more ruthless, reprehensible characters. That’s right – he went to work in Hollywood. He has consulted on shows including Law & Order: SVU, Sleeper Cell, The Inside, and Angela’s Eyes. He has written episodes for The Inside and Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye.

Most importantly, somewhere along the line, Hamer managed to hook up with one of the minority of standup, decent guys in this cutthroat town – the proudly conservative actor/director/producer Jack Scalia, whom you may remember from a 30-year career in television and film, not to mention stints in pro sports and modeling. Scalia’s chin alone has more commanding masculine presence than today’s wispy leading metrosexuals like Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom. Scalia, who describes Targets Down as “pedal to the metal, red-lining in every gear,” has optioned the book for a feature film.

Jack Scalia

(Full disclosure: I’m honored to say that Bob Hamer and Jack Scalia are both friends of mine. Does that cast doubts upon my objectivity? Will some dismiss this article as a puff piece? Frankly I don’t care, because I’m much more afraid of either Bob or Jack spearing me with steely, disapproving glares than I am of the slings and arrows of accusations of favoritism.)

Not a day goes by on Big Hollywood that we conservatives don’t lament the leftist dominance of pop culture, and wish that there were more good-quality books and films that reflect our values instead of Hollywood’s usual nihilistic, elitist fare. Well, here’s a chance to get behind a couple of our own and support their work. Check out all of Bob Hamer’s books including the new thriller Targets Down, and hit the theaters when Jack Scalia brings the latter to the big screen.

Mosques as Barracks in America

By Andrew G. Bostom

http://www.americanthinker.com/

June 5, 2011

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan represents the triumphant Janus-faced approach to the fundamentalist global "Islamic revival." He and his pious forbears have now completed dismantling Turkey's secular experiment, and achieved the full-throated re-Islamization of Turkish society, an insidious process

begun already within the decade after Ataturk's death, in 1938. When currying favor with gullible Western audiences, Erdogan burbles disingenuous ecumenical platitudes about the "Alliance of Civilizations." But in reality, this is an Islamization campaign promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, notably Saudi Arabia, which rewarded Erdogan, for his role in the Alliance, specifically, as "services to Islam," with the "King Faisal International Prize," considered the "Nobel prize" of the Arab world. Regardless, Erdogan has always aroused his Muslim constituencies by brazenly appealing to their deep-seated jihadist sentiments as he did while mayor of Istanbul, in 1997, delivering a fiery speech that reminded the masses of these words from the poem "The Soldier's Prayer," written (in 1912) by Turkish nationalist poet Ziya Gokalp:

The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army.

Cited appropriately by successful opponents of minaret construction in Switzerland, such rhetoric should now resonate uncomfortably in America with the online release Monday June 6, 2011 of alarming survey data from a representative national sample of US mosques.

During August 2007, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released "Radicalization in the West - The Homegrown Threat." This insightful 90-page report evaluated the threat that had become apparent since 9/11/2001, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna in upstate New York to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ. Based upon these case-study analyses of individuals arrested for jihadist activity, the authors concluded that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadists began in so-called "Salafist" ("fundamentalist" to non-Muslims) mosques characterized by high levels of Sharia-Islamic Law-adherence. The landmark study just published, "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" (Kedar M, Yerushalmi D. The Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2011, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 59-72) sought to expand considerably upon the NYPD's post-hoc, case study approach-systematically gathering objective survey data, with much greater methodological rigor-and address these two a priori questions: I) Is there a robust association between observable measures of religious devotion, coupled to Sharia-adherence in US mosques, and the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at these mosques?; and II) Is there a robust association between the presence of violence-sanctioning materials at a mosque, and the advocacy of jihadism by the mosque's leadership via recommending the study of these materials, or other manifest behaviors?

Full details of the sampling methodology, extracts of representative jihad promoting materials (texts), and specific Sharia-compliant behaviors recorded, are provided in the accompanying appendices, reproduced from the full study (which will be available here 6/6/11). In brief, survey data were collected from a nationally representative, random statistical sample of 100 US mosques, covering 14 states, and the District of Columbia. This concise overview of the basic data collection procedures-including a self-critical, honest caveat by the authors about "completeness" of the available information on US mosque locations-is reproduced verbatim from the report (p. 68):

A surveyor visited a subject mosque in order: (a) to observe and record 12 Sharia-adherent behaviors of the worshipers and the imam (or lay leader); (b) to observe whether the mosque contained the selected materials rated as moderate and severe; (c) to observe whether the mosque contained materials promoting, praising, or supporting violence or violent jihad; and (d) to observe whether the mosque contained materials indicating the mosque had invited guest speakers known to have promoted violent jihad. Thus, the survey only examined the presence of Sharia-adherent behaviors, the presence of violence positive materials in mosques, whether an imam would promote the study of violence-positive materials, and whether a mosque was used as a forum to promote violent jihad. Since there is no central body to which all mosques belong, it was difficult to ascertain that the sampling universe list was complete. This may have introduced bias into the sampling although the authors find no evidence of any systemic distortions.

The study's results provide clear-and ominous-affirmative answers to the a priori questions posed. Sharia-adherence was strongly associated with the presence of jihad-violence sanctioning materials, and the presence of jihad-violence sanctioning materials was in turn robustly associated advocacy of jihadism by mosque imams-religious leaders. This key summary finding was highlighted by the authors:

...51 percent of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Shari'a-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim; 30 percent had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence like the Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Fiqh as-Sunna; 19 percent had no violent texts at all.

Thus 81% of this statistical sample representative of US mosques were deemed as moderately (30%) to highly (51%) supportive of promulgating jihad violence to impose Shari'a.

Additional profoundly troubling findings emerge when the data are explored in depth beyond these summary observations. For example, only 4.7% of Muslim worshippers attended mosques where jihadist materials were not provided because Sharia-compliant mosques promoting jihad were the most heavily attended. The authors also describe these specific details indicating that the preponderance of US mosques sanction jihad terrorism and its ultimate goal of a Caliphate (i.e., the transnational imposition of strict Islamic law in current Muslim nations, and ultimately global imposition of Islamic Law, including in the US), if one includes advocacy of financial support for this sacralized violence (from pp. 67-69).

The survey found a strong correlation between the presence of severe violence-promoting literature and mosques featuring written, audio, and video materials that actually promoted such acts. By promotion of jihad, the study included literature encouraging worshipers to engage in terrorist activity, to provide financial support to jihadists, and to promote the establishment of a caliphate in the United States. These materials also explicitly praised acts of terror against the West; praised symbols or role models of violent jihad; promoted the use of force, terror, war, and violence to implement the

Sharia; emphasized the inferiority of non-Muslim life; promoted hatred and intolerance toward non-Muslims or notional Muslims; and endorsed inflammatory materials with anti-U.S. views... [O]f the 51 mosques that contained severe materials, 100 percent were led by imams who recommended that worshipers study texts that promote violence.

[M]osques containing violence positive materials were substantially more likely to include materials promoting financial support of terror than mosques that did not contain such texts. A disturbing 98 percent of mosques with severe texts included materials promoting financial support of terror. Those with only moderate rated materials on site were not markedly different, with 97 percent providing such materials.

These results were comparable when using other indicators of jihad promotion. Thus, 98 percent of mosques that contained severe-rated literature included materials promoting establishing an Islamic caliphate in the United States as did 97 percent of mosques containing only moderate rated materials.

These are the hard data that make plain why the "see no Sharia in America" mindslaughter redolent across the political spectrum amongst our policymaking, academic, and journalistic elites, is so dangerously delusive.

Indeed such disturbing survey results from a nationally representative sample of US mosques demonstrate Islam's doctrinal and behavioral consistency across nearly 14 centuries, past as prologue to the present. Over 17,000 jihad terror attacks have been committed by Muslims worldwide since the cataclysmic acts of jihad terrorism committed against the United States itself on September 11, 2001. These data should remind us that there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad despite contemporary apologetics. Jahada, the root of the word jihad, appears 40 times in the Koran. With 4 exceptions, all the other 36 usages in the Koran as understood by both the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazali), and ordinary Muslims-meant and mean, "he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like."

The Muslim prophet Muhammad waged a series of proto-jihad campaigns to subdue the Jews, Christians and pagans of Arabia. Numerous modern day pronouncements by leading Muslim theologians (see Yusuf Al-Qaradawi's "The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model," 2001) confirm that Muhammad remains the major inspiration for jihadism today. Jihad has been pursued continuously since the 7^th century advent of Islam, through the present, because it was institutionalized by seminal early Muslim theologians based on their interpretation of Koranic verses, and long chapters in the "hadith," or acts and sayings of Muhammad. Within a century of Muhammad's death, violent jihad conquests-achieved by religiously sanctioned massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation-Islamized a vast swath of territory, extending from modern Pakistan to Portugal. The permanent goal of jihad is to bring humanity, en bloc, under the jurisdiction of Sharia-a totalitarian system of religious governance, particularly oppressive to all non-Muslims, and women.

American Presidents John Quincy Adams and Theodore Roosevelt each possessed a remarkably clear, uncompromised understanding of the permanent Islamic institution of jihad war-both its doctrinal basis, and history. Regarding jihad, Adams states in an 1829-30 essay series,

...he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind...The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.

Roosevelt offered this historical perspective in 1916 on the consequences for Western civilization of succeeding, or failing to repel jihad conquerors: 

The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization...[including] those of Charles Martel in the 8th century [over Arab jihadists] and those of John Sobieski in the 17th century [over Ottoman Turkish jihadists]. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier [Martel] and the Polish king [Sobieski], the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any 'social values' whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence [is]...concerned."

Also writing in 1916, C. Snouck Hurgronje, the great Dutch Orientalist, underscored how the jihad doctrine of world conquest, and the re-creation of a supranational Islamic Caliphate remained a potent force among the Muslim masses:

...it would be a gross mistake to imagine that the idea of universal conquest may be considered as obliterated...the canonists and the vulgar still live in the illusion of the days of Islam's greatness. The legists continue to ground their appreciation of every actual political condition on the law of the holy war, which war ought never be allowed to cease entirely until all mankind is reduced to the authority of Islam-the heathen by conversion, the adherents of acknowledged Scripture [i.e., Jews and Christians] by submission.

Hurgronje further noted that although the Muslim rank and file might acknowledge the improbability of that goal "at present" (circa 1916), they were,

...comforted and encouraged by the recollection of the lengthy period of humiliation that the Prophet himself had to suffer before Allah bestowed victory upon his arms...

Thus even at the nadir of Islam's political power, during the World War I era final disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, Hurgronje observed how

...the common people are willingly taught by the canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the innumerable legends of the olden time and the equally innumerable apocalyptic prophecies about the future. The political blows that fall upon Islam make less impression...than the senseless stories about the power of the Sultan of Stambul [Istanbul], that would instantly be revealed if he were not surrounded by treacherous servants, and the fantastic tidings of the miracles that Allah works in the Holy Cities of Arabia which are inaccessible to the unfaithful. The conception of the Khalifate [Caliphate] still exercises a fascinating influence, regarded in the light of a central point of union against the unfaithful (i.e., non-Muslims).

Nearly a century later, the preponderance of contemporary mainstream Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia, apparently share with their murderous, jihad terror waging co-religionists from al-Qaeda the goal (if not necessarily supporting the gruesome means) of re-establishing an Islamic Caliphate. Polling data released April 24, 2007 in a rigorously conducted face-to-face University of Maryland/ WorldPublicOpinion.org interview survey of 4384 Muslims conducted between December 9, 2006 and February 15, 2007-1000 Moroccans, 1000 Egyptians, 1243 Pakistanis, and 1141 Indonesians-reveal that 65.2% of those interviewed - almost 2/3, hardly a "fringe minority" - desired this outcome (i.e., "To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate"), including 49% of "moderate" Indonesian Muslims. The internal validity of these data about the present longing for a Caliphate is strongly suggested by a concordant result: 65.5% of this Muslim sample approved the proposition "To require a strict [emphasis added] application of Sharia law in every Islamic country."

Such Caliphate dreams -- to be achieved through jihad conquests -- have always been nurtured in mosques. The authoritative Brill Encyclopedia of Islam entry on "masdjid," or mosque, highlights the mosque's primary socio-political functions -- including holding war councils -- since the advent of the first Muslim polity under Islam's prophet-warrior and ruler, Muhammad, in Medina:

The mosque was the place where believers assembled for prayer around the Prophet, where he delivered his addresses, which contained not only appeals for obedience to God but regulations affecting the social life of the community; from here he controlled the religious and political community of Islam...From the Medina mosque was developed the general type of mosque.

It was inherent in the character of Islam, that religion and politics could not be separated. The same individual was ruler and chief administrator in the two fields, and the same building, the mosque, was the center of gravity for both politics and religion. This relationship found expression in the fact that the mosque was placed in the center of the camp, while the ruler's abode was built immediately adjacent to it, as in Medina.

[W]ar was inseparably associated with early Islam and the mosque was public meeting place of ruler and people...councils of war were held in the mosque.

Richard Mitchell's seminal analysis of the contemporary Muslim Brotherhood-the prototype modern fundamentalist organization-state's simply, that from its advent,

Throughout the history of the [Muslim Brotherhood] movement the mosque continued to be its principal recruiting office.

This doctrinal and historical context explains why the "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" study results-while immediate, justifiable cause for alarm-are unsurprising, even predictable. Moreover the current findings were augured by a qualitative assessment of US mosques by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani described in 1999, and the localized Detroit area survey of mosques conducted in 2003.

During a 1999 State Department presentation entitled "Islamic Extremism: A Viable Threat to U.S. National Security" Sufi Sheikh Kabbani, who heads The Islamic Supreme Council of America, based upon personal visits to mosques across the US, asserted that 80% were run by "militant," i.e. fundamentalist clerics. "The Detroit Mosque Study: Muslim Views on Policy and Religion," was conducted by Ihsan Bagby an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at thye University of Kentucky and a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy Understanding-a Muslim organization. Data were gathered during the summer of 2003 and published online in 2004. These portentous findings were described on page 37 of the report:

Mosque participants were asked, whether they agree or disagree with the statement, "Shari'ah should be the law of the land in Muslim countries?"

Apply Islamic Law in Muslim Lands

Strongly Agree - 59%
Somewhat Agree - 22%

(i.e., collectively = 81%)

Somewhat Disagree - 8%
Strongly Disagree - 3%
Don't Know - 8%

Such data supposedly reflected the Detroit area Muslims views of "Islamic countries," only. But given the intrinsic, universally supremacist nature of Islam and the global umma (i.e., as stated in Koran 3:110, and the Orwellian-named Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "Ye are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah"), once an area has a Muslim majority it is assumed by Muslims that Islamic Law should prevail-hence the "enclave" phenomenon, even here in the United States.

Publication of the "Sharia and Violence in American Mosques" study provides irrefragable evidence that the overwhelming majority of American mosques -- consistent with mainstream Islamic doctrine and practice since the founding of the Muslim creed -- are inculcating jihadism with the goal of implementing Sharia here in America.

Finally, Whittaker Chambers' autobiographical opus "Witness," which chronicles his apostasy from Communism, offers these searing insights that elucidate how American Muslims could rationalize such seditious behaviors -- consistent with Islamic doctrine -- and why this phenomenon remains largely incomprehensible to American non-Muslims, despite its existential threat to them.

What went on in the minds of those Americans...that made it possible to betray their country? Did none of them suffer a crisis of conscience? The question presupposes that whoever asks it has still failed to grasp that Communists mean exactly what they have been saying for a hundred years: they regard any government that is not Communist, including their own, merely as the political machine of a class whose power they have organized expressly to overthrow by all means, including violence. Therefore the problem of espionage never presents itself to them as problem of conscience, but a problem of operations...

The failure to understand that fact is part of the total failure of the West to grasp the nature of its enemy, what he wants, what he means to do and how he will go about doing it. It is part of the failure of the West to understand that it is at grips with an enemy having no moral viewpoint in common with itself, that two irreconcilable viewpoints and standards of judgment, two irreconcilable moralities, proceeding from two irreconcilable readings of man's fate and future are involved, and hence their conflict is irrepressible.

(See appendix on methodologies here)

Once Again, FBI’s ‘Muslim Outreach’ Welcomes Terror-Tied Man

Despite knowing the Hamas ties of Kifah Mustapha, the FBI gave him a guided tour of a top-secret counterterrorism center and access to classified investigative techniques.

 

June 4, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Patrick Poole

http://pajamasmedia.com/

 

 

Court documents filed last month by the Department of Justice in a federal civil rights lawsuit shows that Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Robert Grant of the FBI Chicago field office had warned the Illinois State Police: newly appointed Muslim chaplain Kifah Mustapha (pictured above) would never pass an FBI background check.

 

Mustapha’s long association with terrorist group Hamas occurred at virtually the same time that Mustapha was admitted into the FBI Citizens’ Academy sponsored by SAC Grant’s Chicago office. The Academy program required a background check and included a guided tour of the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the FBI Academy at Quantico.

The statements made by SAC Grant were noted in a motion for a protective order filed with the court and noted in a report published by the Investigative Project. The DOJ’s motion states:

In each conversation, SAC Grant stated that Mustapha would not pass an FBI background check if he applied for an FBI chaplain position and then proceeded to explain the bases for his opinion.

The DOJ motion is in response to the lawsuit filed by Mustapha after his state police appointment as Muslim chaplain was revoked. Mustapha had initially been accepted as state police chaplain, but after a news story aired reporting Mustapha’s terrorist connections and terror support, the state police conducted another background check. During this check was apparently when the conversations with SAC Grant took place, which resulted in the state police revoking Mustapha’s appointment.
Mustapha then sued, claiming ethnic and religious discrimination, with his case being supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has also been identified by the FBI as a terrorist front for Hamas.

The FBI, which is not a party to the lawsuit, is seeking to protect the information they shared with the state police on Mustapha, claiming it would reveal sources and collection methods.

There’s not much mystery as to why SAC Grant would tell the Illinois State Police that Kifah Mustapha couldn’t pass an FBI background check. Mustapha is a known Hamas operative, including his prior employment with the Holy Land Foundation, which was listed as a specially designated terrorist group by the U.S. government in December 2001, and whose executives were convicted of terrorism support for Hamas in 2008 and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Mustapha was personally named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator (#31) in the case, and employment records submitted during the trial showed that he received more than $154,000 for his work with the Holy Land Foundation between 1996 and 2000.

Also during the trial, FBI Special Agent Lara Burns testified that Mustapha sang in a band sponsored by the Holy Land Foundation that regularly featured songs dedicated to killing Jews and glorifying Hamas.

In a deposition he gave in a civil trial concerned with the murder of a Chicago teenager killed by Hamas while waiting for a bus in Israel, Mustapha admitted that he was the registered agent for the Holy Land Foundation in Illinois, and also to his involvement with other Hamas front groups, including the Islamic Association for Palestine. He was later hired as an imam by the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, which the Chicago Tribune noted in 2004 has long been a hotbed of Hamas support.

What makes the statements by SAC Grant so puzzling is that at virtually the same time that he was telling the state police that Mustapha couldn’t pass an FBI background check, Mustapha apparently passed an FBI background check when he was admitted to the FBI Citizens’ Academy under the sponsorship of Grant’s office.

The Citizens’ Academy webpage on the FBI’s own website states:

Because of the classified investigative techniques discussed, nominees must also undergo a background check and get an interim security clearance.

In at least some of the FBI programs, each nominee must meet the approval of the special agent in charge. This glaring contradiction has been noted by Mustapha’s attorneys in his lawsuit against the state police, who have issued a subpoena to the FBI requesting all materials involving the FBI background check conducted for Mustapha’s admittance to the FBI Citizens’ Academy.

So how exactly did Kifah Mustapha with his extensive terror ties get cleared to participate in the six-week FBI program? That’s precisely the question I asked when I first broke the story last September about Mustapha being given a guided tour of the top-secret NCTC and the FBI Academy. After my initial story was published, one Homeland Security official contacted me informing me not only that “the plugs had to be pulled” in order for Mustapha to be admitted to the FBI program, but that “the NCTC has Kifah Mustapha on the highest watch list we have.”

Mustapha’s terrorist ties are hardly a secret since much of the information available publicly is from FBI agents testifying in court, court and deposition transcripts, and exhibits entered into evidence by federal prosecutors during the largest terrorism financing trial in American history.

But as soon as my report was published, the FBI began to double-down and defend Mustapha’s inclusion in the program. FBI Chicago spokesman Ross Rice told the Washington Times: “If we thought he was a security risk, we wouldn’t have included him.” But we now know from the DOJ’s filing in the lawsuit that SAC Grant thought Mustapha enough of a security threat to repeatedly mention it to his Illinois State Police colleagues.

Another FBI spokesman, Paul Bresson, also spoke to Fox News, which reported:

“He’s a prominent figure in the community,” Bresson said, adding that the sheik has not been convicted of a crime. “It’s not like we gave him secret access or classified information.”

But the FBI did give him access to the top-secret NCTC, which even many Homeland Security and federal law enforcement officials are not able to enter and whose location is secret. And by its own admission posted on their own website, the FBI gives Citizens’ Academy participants access to “classified investigative techniques,” which is precisely their stated reason why they must first pass a background check and receive a limited security clearance.

After all, the FBI itself advertises its academies with the promise: “Want to find out first hand how the FBI works? Hear how the Bureau tracks down spies and terrorists?” No doubt, terrorist operatives like Kifah Mustapha are very interested in how the FBI conducts terrorist investigations, and in this case the FBI knowingly let at least one terrorist operative in on those secrets.

No wonder then that as soon as the media started asking questions, both FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Security Advisor James Clapper refused to address the issue just a few days after I broke the story.

Kifah Mustapha’s lawsuit and the admission by the DOJ about SAC Grant’s statements about Mustapha to the Illinois State Police, along with the FBI’s inclusion of Mustapha in their Citizens’ Academy program, expose the pure schizophrenia that characterizes the U.S. government’s “Muslim outreach” efforts. Time and again we see government agencies knowingly and willingly reaching out to terrorist operatives as official representatives of or interlocutors with the Muslim community (eg., Abdurahman Alamoudi, Anwar al-Awlaki, Louay Safi, et al).

But what we see in this most recent court filing is that what law enforcement and Homeland Security officials are willing to say in private to their colleagues about their “outreach partners” is the exact opposite of what they say when they repeatedly get caught in their own “outreach” traps and begin publicly defending terrorist operatives when asked about it by the media.

It is clearly time for Congress to get to the bottom of the U.S. government’s hopelessly failed and utterly counter-productive Muslim outreach programs that empower and legitimize terrorist operatives like Kifah Mustapha and expose other law enforcement agencies that are unwilling to participate in such duplicity to lawsuits by terrorist fronts masquerading as “civil rights organizations” such as CAIR. The FBI has established mutually exclusive positions on their outreach partner Kifah Mustapha and it is long past time that these agencies are held to account.

Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.

Today's Tune: Bruce Springsteen - Stolen Car (Live)

Today's Tune: Bruce Springsteen - Soul Driver (Live)

Hang on, Tar Heels, it's going to be wild

BY ROB CHRISTENSEN - Staff Writer
The News & Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/
June 4, 2011

Former U.S. Senator John Edwards and his daughter Cate make their way through the media to a waiting car in front of the Hiram H. Ward Federal Building in Winston-Salem, N.C. where he was arraigned Friday June 3, 2011
(CHUCK LIDDY - cliddy@newsobserver.com)

It was in courtrooms like the federal building in Winston-Salem that a country-boy-on-the-make that everyone called Johnny began carving out his legendary law career.

Who knew back in the 1980s that it would lead to a string of million-dollar verdicts, to the U.S. Senate, to two runs for president, and to the Democratic vice presidential nomination?

Or that in the blink of an eye, it would all come crashing down upon John Edwards, not only dispatching his political career to the dust bin, but leading on Friday to a criminal indictment and his name on an arrest warrant.

So hard has been Edwards' fall that it is hard to find a person who has a kind word to say about him in his home state. Many would just as soon forget Edwards.

But ready or not, North Carolina is about to get a full immersion in the Edwardian scandal - weeks of testimony about an illicit affair, a love child, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of hush money passed in a box of chocolate.

The trial will likely be a media circus unlike the state has ever seen. It will make the criminal proceedings surrounding former House Speaker Jim Black (sentenced to prison) and former Gov. Mike Easley (who accepted a plea bargain) look like traffic court. Think the Rod Blagojevich trial on steroids.

With the Edwards trial this year, and the national Democratic convention next year, political reporters from Japan to Finland will be setting their GPS to Interstate 85 during the next 16 months.

Even though he was the subject of a lengthy grand jury investigation in Raleigh, it seems likely the trial itself will be in Greensboro or Winston-Salem, which is in the U.S. Middle District, where Edwards' Chapel Hill home is and where his campaign headquarters was located.

Edwards faced a difficult decision - whether to accept a plea deal from federal prosecutors on a felony count or to fight the case in court.

To fight the case, Edwards will likely have to spend millions of dollars of his own money, put his family through the bright glare of a highly publicized trial that will splatter the scandal all across the nation's TV screens again. And he risks losing. More than most people, Edwards knows that facing a jury is a game of roulette, and jurors may simply decide to punish a guy who cheated while his wife was battling cancer.

In Edwards' favor, the prosecutors' case is far from a slam dunk. Numerous legal commentators have remarked on how the federal prosecutors seem to be reaching. Campaign law violations usually involve unreported donations to a campaign - not gifts made by supporters to a candidate's girlfriend and former aide.

"A remarkably weak case," was how Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal a watch dog group, described the case.

I have talked to conservatives who are troubled by the indictment as well, comparing the Edwards case to the prosecution of former Bush White House aides Karl Rove and Scooter Libby as an example of overzealous prosecution.

While various groups and individuals expressed reservations about the Edwards prosecution, there were few voices coming to his defense Friday - no statements from North Carolina political figures, or former campaign aides, or former Senate colleagues.

Edwards was always a political loner; he didn't work his way up through politics, but financed his 1998 Senate campaign out of his own pocket. Many Democrats were attracted to his politics, and saw him as a progressive voice for the poor. His most ardent backers even saw him for a while as the second coming of Bobby Kennedy.

But many of those same people became disenchanted with his hubris; and then disillusioned with his recklessness and his treatment of his late wife Elizabeth.

In his autobiographical book, "Four Trials," Edwards talks about how much he relied on Elizabeth as a sounding board for his big cases.

But now that he faces his biggest trial, Edwards seems a man alone.

rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4532