It seems like just as the Ground Zero mosque controversy was receding, NBC has decided to stoke the flames of passion again by naming the project’s developer Sharif El-Gamal a “Person Of The Year“. Gee, NBC once again demonstrates how far out of touch it is with mainstream America? There’s a shock.
Having not seen the interview which airs Thursday it would be irresponsible of me to make a blanket assertion that it was a softball slug-fest. But knowing the political leanings of the interviewer Matt Lauer, and then folding them into the decidedly left of center overview of NBC itself, it’s pretty safe to say that Gamal was not exactly reduced to tears by the time the cameras stopped rolling.
NBC will apparentlybe naming the remarkably shady developer of the Ground Zero Mosque one of its “People of the Year.” NBC released a preview of what appears to be yet another slobbering, softball interview of Gamal this time performed by Matt Lauer.
So why is NBC honoring this thug? Because the mainstream media is avid to get this Islamic supremacist mosque built, and the will of the people be damned.
Could NBC make it any clearer what they think of the opinions and sensitivities of their viewers or 70% of the American public at large? I think we are all looking forward to seeing both the rest of the list and who NBC passed over in order to bestow this honor on El Gamal (other than Imam Rauf).
Over the last few days, on the news channels and the net, it has been wall-to-wall coverage of the Juan Williams firing by the tools over at National Public Radio. NPR was serving the hydra-headed, Hamas-supporting Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which called on them to take action against Williams.
I am grateful for this high-profile incident. Much like with the Ground Zero mosque affair, Americans have suddenly become aware of something quite terrible — a sea change, a profound transformation of a basic assumption, and a stunning reversal of their very basic unalienable rights. Their sensibilities are shaken. How could such a major seismic shift be kept hidden, kept so secret, until suddenly Juan Williams, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, gets fired for telling the truth? Is it any wonder that recent polls show that the majority of Americans no longer trust the media? That is a good thing.
To Williams’ point, we have an entire government agency, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), dedicated to protecting us from terrorists who are largely Muslim. We have torturous security procedures at every stage of air travel. We bear unfathomable costs in taxpayer dollars, but worse, in the surrender of privacy and individual rights because of Islamic jihad: because of the 9/11 Muslim terrorists; and the British Muslims who planned to blow up seven planes and kill 4,000 Americans and/or British people in the name of Islam in 2006; and because of Richard Reid, the Muslim with the exploding shoes; and the Christmas day bomber, the Muslim with the exploding crotch.
And yet in watching the mainstream media coverage of Juan Williams affair, we witness the fact that the media still cannot face up to its own capitulation. It’s all over the airwaves, but no one will discuss what is actually happening — the loss of the freedom of speech to Islamic supremacism and domination. This is a deadly fight — Islam in the West and its suppression of free speech. (more…)
While I’m not one to care what some over-paid harridans think (see Maureen Dowd), you have to admit the recent episode of the View, where Fox’s Bill O’Reilly got into a shouting match with the show’s two more extreme harpies was amusing to watch. It’s also very instructive on how the so called progressives… uh… think. Or should I say, operate. Progressives do not like open debate. They have an agenda, and anything at variance with that agenda must be shut down at all costs. When screeching and hollering didn’t work, the two co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, stormed off the set in outrage when O’Reilly dared suggest that Muslims attacked us on 9/11.
What seemed like immature grandstanding on their part was a perfect example of how the left tries to stonewall any argument it doesn’t like. Not willing or able to provide actual intelligent and rational arguments of their own, the two women exited the stage.
Barbara Walters showed she was closer to a true liberal by telling the audience that what just happened was wrong and shouldn’t never occur on their show. It’s a talk show, after all. And as hosts, they should show some measure of respect to their guests. It seems the View’s history of crank hosts is still going strong.
The left-driven media in these final days before the election is making every last ditch effort they can to discredit one of the largest political movements in American history, the Tea Party. Meredith Vieira on the Today Show did her very best to throw Michele Bachmann off of the “you’re a social conservative bigot by association” cliff. Vieira first tries to get Bachmann to denounce the Tea Party as “losing their way” because they supposedly took a stance on some social issues. Bachmann corrects Vieira so Vieira tries to play the “guilt by association” game with Bachmann. It’s interesting how conservatives are constantly forced to answer for all comments that all conservatives make but no one held Harry Reid accountable for Howard Dean’s view on the mosque. When the liberals disagreed over the Ground Zero Mosque nationally, where were the interviews asking them to denounce the each other’s positions?
Joy Behar later references the Vieira interview and shows total ignorance when it comes to Bachmann. Again, Behar tries to hold Vieira to the same standard that Vieira held Bachmann and it still didn’t take with Behar’s guests. Behar then goes off on Bachmann’s opposition to Obamacare and completely loses all form of sanity. She maniacally proclaims over and over again that Bachmann is against children. Behar really tries to argue that Bachmann, the woman who has had at least 23 foster children as well as children of her own, is anti-children. Behar not only insults her viewers by her lack of research on criticizing a candidate but she also insults and diminishes the children that Bachmann has cared for. I suppose it’s too much to expect a reasonable interview from Behar when on The View Behar shows she isn’t even familiar with one of the most cited CNN polls concerning the Ground Zero Mosque. Not to mention the fact that she stormed off stage in pseudo disgust on national television. (more…)
To paraphrase Bill O’Reilly, “When they start calling you names, you know you’ve won.” To take it a step further, when they leave the conversation in the middle of an interview in disgust, you know who are the real professionals and who aren’t. In any other profession, if you leave your job during the time of executing its functions because you can’t emotionally handle the stress, you are fired or reassigned. But if you’re on The View and interviewing a Fox News commentator, the audience cheers for your emotional incompetence.
Bill O’Reilly was making the case about why the Ground Zero Mosque has such a large opposition against it. In the midst of all the woman trying to strangle him with their words he declares, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” His comments were met with yelling and cussing from Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg. O’Reilly, unfazed by their antics, pressed them, “Are you saying Muslims didn’t kill us on 9/11?” That comment was met with Behar raising herself off the couch with faux righteous indignation saying, “I don’t want to sit here next to you.” Goldberg followed suit and the two marched backstage. (more…)
They were outraged over Mr. O’Reilly’s suggestion that the 9/11 attacks were executed by Muslims. Barbara Walters immediately chastised her colleagues for their behavior.
The editors of Big Hollywood add, “Funny how no one bothered to storm off the set while Whoopi defended fugitive child ‘not-rape-rape’ rapist Roman Polanski.” As uncomfortable as it may be for people on the multiculturalist left, O’Reilly was speaking the truth, unlike Behar when she said mother-of-28 Michele Bachmann is “against children.” Remarkably, conservative pundit S.E. Cupp managed to keep her composure and stay on stage in that instance
Over the past couple of months, a lot of readers of my website, AtlasShrugs, have been asking me why I go on these consistently belligerent TV shows to discuss Islam, knowing that:
It is going to be a hostile environment;
I will be debating liars, deceivers and Islamic supremacists;
I will be defamed, smeared and slandered;
The playing field will be grossly unfair;
I will be interrupted, cut off, and rebuked;
I will be given much less time than my opponent.
I will tell you why. It is an opportunity, however compromised. Voices like mine, Robert Spencer’s, Wafa Sultan’s and Ibn Warraq’s are never heard in the mainstream media. The truth is hidden from the masses, and the media’s criminal negligence is cloaked in good intentions. Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
This is guerrilla warfare in the information battlespace, in the war of ideas. These media opportunities were hardly perfect, but they were something. Why make perfect the enemy of the good? They were better than the traditional blackout on our freedom- defense initiatives. It was a shot, and I was taking it and running with it, no matter how disgusting it all was.
From the media’s perspective, the Ground Zero mosque was an historical phenomenon. For the first time, a major news story became the most important national and international news story without the media. Think about that. Unlike the fringe pastor in Florida, who tweeted a Qur’an threat and the media descended like locusts to a Florida backwater to create a news story, a narrative, the Ground Zero mosque was not shaped by the media, not covered by the media — not at first anyway. (more…)
Here’s something you don’t hear very often from a Fox News Contributor “You’re a woman, you better be careful about saying who I carry water for,” but that was the threat Bob Beckel made to my friend, Pamela Geller editor of Atlas Shrugs and Big Journalism contributor during a heated exchange on Eric Bolling’s Fox Business News show Money Rocks last night.
After a discussion of the 60 Minutes report on the Ground Zero mosque controversy (that ran the night before) Bolling brought in Ahmed Rehab of CAIR who instead of discussing the Mosque stooped to calling Ms. Geller names. That’s the same CAIR that was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Terrorist funding case and as recently as this past March, whose terrorist ties were reaffirmed by the FBI.
Then Beckel, looking visibly angry was brought in to discuss an insensitive statement during his last appearance on Money Rocks, in which he said,
“Look, at some point, I know it’s sensitive here in New York and probably New Jersey, but we have to get over 9/11.”
Beckel’s response to the query about his statement to tear into Pamela, saying that on her site she once said she felt President Obama was an anti-Semite.
Obviously Beckel felt intimidated by Geller because he could not even look at her while he started his childish name calling. But as he got his “sea legs” the progressive apologist began to get abusive toward Pamela, still unable to look her in the eye: (more…)
Proving once again that the sexually-obsessed Islamists have no concept about what constitutes “hallowed ground,” the fast-diminishing Imam Rauf clearly doesn’t understand that the clubs and businesses in lower Manhattan he finds objectionable anteceded 9/11 — which in any case was not perpetrated by pole dancers acting in the name of ecdysiasm.
Just don’t expect the mosque-rooting Mayor and the New York Times to point this out.
Tens of thousands attended the Rally of Remembrance for the 9/11 victims and against the Ground Zero mega-mosque on Saturday. The crowd was so large, it stretched as far as the eye could see; you could not see the horizon from our stage.
Yet AP reported that the pro-mosque counter-demonstration drew around a thousand “activists,” while “a smaller group of opponents rallied nearby, chanting, ‘USA, USA.’” The New York Post was only marginally more honest, numbering our rally attendees at 2,500: “The estimated 3,000 pro-mosque demonstrators outnumbered the mosque opponents by about 500.”
New York 1 did a story on the rallies, but only showed footage of the pro-mosque rally. The Post likewise only published pictures of the pro-mosque rally. AP ran an aerial photo of the rally, but one that was so poorly framed that one-third of it was dominated by a large gray building, and the crowd was cut off on the other side.
No one ran accurate photos of the rally, showing the full size of the crowd stretching beyond the horizon. Why didn’t anyone think to take aerial shots of both rallies? That would have settled all questions. The pictures don’t lie, but the media does. AP and the Post were not alone in their depiction of our rally and the pro-Islamic supremacist one as “dueling rallies.” Their coverage of our immense rally versus the tiny counter-protest is dangerous and absurd. (more…)
Years before his latest real-estate project ignited an uproar, Sharif El-Gamal racked up at least seven run-ins with the law, including a bust for patronizing a prostitute.
“I regret many things that I did in my youth. I have not always led a perfect life,” El-Gamal, 37, said in a statement to the Daily News.
His most recent arrest was for a Sept. 10, 2005, assault on a barber who sublet a Manhattan apartment from El-Gamal’s brother, Sammy.
The brothers and another man went to the apartment that afternoon to retrieve back rent from Mark Vassiliev, criminal and civil court records show.
El-Gamal allegedly cursed at Vassiliev, called him the Arabic curse word “sharmouta” and punched him in the face, breaking his nose and cheekbones.
When he was arrested, El-Gamal denied he socked Vassiliev, but conceded, “[Vassiliev's] face could have run into my hand,” court papers say.
Keith Olbermann in his drive to be the champion of the Progressive Left and defender of all things, “President Obama and Democrats,” erroneously reported there is a Mosque in the Pentagon recently as a majority of American expressed their opposition to a possible community center/mosque at New York’s Ground Zero.
A mosque within the Pentagon, wait let me check the Constitution quickly; is there is something in there about separation of Church and State? (Actually, no, but there is Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, which has always been good enough for the left.) I am also checking to see when military leaders endorsed one religion over another one — quick someone call Speaker Pelosi — there needs to be Congressional hearings into this!
Keith, I keep checking and can’t seem to find any media releases or official military documents about this mosque at the Pentagon. Could it be that the all powerful and smarter-than -hou Keith Olbermann was actually wrong on an issue and thus has become this week’s “Worst Person in the World?” (more…)
As Big Peace readers–and Rush Limbaugh listeners–know, at last Sunday’s Coalition to Honor Ground Zero’s rally, I watched an ABC News crew stand by, ready to film, while one of their co-workers tried to provoke an angry or violent reaction at a New York rally protesting the Ground Zero mosque.
ABC News announced late yesterday that they had “reprimanded” the still unnamed audio man who was representing ABC News at the Ground Zero rally. Transparency is an elusive quality at ABC.
ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider tells TVNewser the network has looked into Lafferty’s complaint and agrees that the tech “aggressively” questioned members of the crowd with his personal camera.
After a lengthy conversation with Jeffrey Schneider myself, I am even more alarmed at how casually ABC treats its responsibility to attempt to be truthful and accurate. In covering the Ground Zero rally, the ABC News representatives were neither.
Mr. Schneider’s bottom line was to argue that no footage which was the product of ABC’s harassing effort appeared in their final coverage. I asked: what if the ABC News harassment of the people at the rally had been successful, would footage of “an angry mob” have been included in that night’s news program? (more…)
Whenever I am told I must be tolerant of other people’s religion, I always wonder, well, which tenet of their religion do you mean? A religion, after all, is a system of beliefs and to say that all beliefs are equally worthy of tolerance is to say, essentially, that ideas don’t matter at all. It’s nonsense of the purest ray serene.
For instance, I always try not to burn or behead those who hold different views on transubstantiation than I do – though there are days when it’s difficult, believe you me. But if, like those Westboro Baptist clowns, you turn up at a US soldiers’ funeral claiming he deserved to die because America tolerates homosexuality and “God hates fags,” then you have been un-friended by me, brother. Because your beliefs suck.
So with a group of Muslims cruelly and despicably determined to raise a triumphalist mosque near the site of the Islamist atrocities of 9/11 in New York, the question naturally occurs: Does Islam suck?
Call us cynical but we wonder whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s passionate backing of the building of a controversial mosque near Ground Zero stems as much from Bloomberg’s belief in America’s “freedom of faith” as it might from the Mayor’s belief in the “virtues of Islamic finance?”
Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’? A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.
Michael Bloomberg, has become a staunch supporter of the Cordoba House (Park51) Ground Zero Mosque. In the process, the Mayor has lectured opponents on “religious liberty” and, by extension, implied that opposition to the mosque is largely based on bigotry.
Lately, Bloomberg has become so insistent on the mosque’s being built at its planned location that The New York Post has labeled him Pro-Mosque Mike.”
A defiant Mayor Bloomberg, saying there should be no compromise, insisted last night that a mosque be built near Ground Zero, declaring, “We must do what is right, not what is easy.
While Bloomberg hasn’t been shy about questioning the motives of those opposed to the mosque’s location, the media has shied away from the Mayor‘s motivations. But what of the Mayor’s motives? What might they be? Does a strong passion for religious liberty explain all?
Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues. (more…)
On my Twitter account, I follow a few hundred mainstream media-types (keep the enemy closer, right?), and unless I've missed it (and I hope I have), not a single one has spoken out in defense of Roland Martin. Not one. How scary is that. The politically correct Groupthink...
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