In May, we exclusively broke the story that Taliban leader, Mullah Omar had been taken into the custody of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Since that time, there has been multiple reporting that supports our exclusive, including Colonel Oliver North and Afghan Television.

And while Newsweek nibbled around the edges of the story two weeks after us, they have now come out with a new article stating:

Taliban sources say Pakistan uses catch-and-release tactics to keep insurgent leaders in line. All told, the ISI has picked up some 300 Taliban commanders and officials, the sources say. Before being freed, the detainees are subjected to indoctrination sessions to remind them that they owe their freedom and their absolute loyalty to Pakistan, no matter what. As one example, the sources mention Abdul Qayum Zakir, who spent five years at Guantánamo and is now the group’s top military commander. They say the Pakistanis detained him and about a dozen other Taliban commanders and shadow governors earlier this year, soon after having picked up the insurgency’s No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, only to set them free several days later after making sure their priorities meshed with Pakistan’s.

Some leading Taliban even suspect that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader and symbol of their jihad, may also be in ISI custody. He has appeared in no videos and issued no verifiable audio messages or written statements since he disappeared into the Kandahar mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle in late 2001. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the ISI arrested us all in one day,” says a former cabinet minister. “We are like sheep the Pakistanis can round up whenever they want.

(more…)

Tomorrow, July 1st, I have the honor of co-hosting Move America Forward’s 3rd Annual Troopathon to raise money for care packages for our troops.   The eight-hour broadcast, which will air live across the World Wide Web,  will stream here at Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism, and Breitbart.TV from 4 p.m. to midnight, EDT.  Please join us to show your support for our brave men and women fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere for our safety and for the freedom of people around the world. Here are the details from MAF:

The concept behind Troopathon is not a new idea, put on a Jerry Lewis style telethon to benefit a worthy cause, but a Troopathon is groundbreaking and innovative in that we bring together famous celebrities from radio, television, movie stars, musicians, journalists, and more to create a one-of-a-kind event with one purpose – to support our troops on the front lines in the war on terror and honor their service and sacrifice for our nation. (more…)

Late this afternoon,  Lt. Colonel Oliver North confirmed that Taliban leader and Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Mohammed Omar has been captured. The exclusive news of Omar’s capture was broken by Big Government and Big Journalism Monday evening.

According to Colonel North, Omar was picked up in Karachi on March 27th by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) who placed him under house arrest in what they call “community care.”

Per North’s sources, “[Omar] has since been transferred to a secret ISI lock-up under the Pakistani euphemism: “institutional care.”

North goes on to state, “According to several reports, all of this information was confirmed to U.S. officials by a senior Pakistani military officer ‘several weeks ago.’” A fact also broken in Monday’s Big Government exclusive.

Last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a “diplomatic firestorm” when she indicted Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Said Clinton, “I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is (sic), where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is (sic)…”

North hopes the Secretary was “dissembling,” because intelligence sources here in the U.S. and Afghanistan have informed him that Pakistani officials “know exactly where Mullah Omar is: in the hands of the ISI.” Driving the point home, North added, “This should not be news to the U.S. Secretary of State.”

(more…)

I felt I had to write this as I have taken part in nearly every Freedom Concert Tour since Sean Hannity and Col. Oliver North have been promoting them over the last few years.

First of all my late father was promoter of disco bands back in the 1970’s, so I do have a bit of insight into events and the behind scene cost of putting on events that the general public will never know.

While Hannity and North have publicly stated that most of the artists involved in the Freedom Concert Tour donate their time to the effort in supporting the mission of the Freedom Alliance, the small things like air-conditioned buses, catered food and bottle water don’t exactly come for free, along with transport of the bands equipment, band and their family members, security, crowd and traffic control. Simply put, I guess there are a few people out there who believe Charlie Daniels, Governor Perry or Larry “The Cable Guy” are suppose to stand in the hot sun eating ham sandwiches and drinking from juice boxes until they are ready to go on stage. Then there of course is the cost for getting a venue for the 1,000s of supporters who come to these concerts along with their families and invited guests, the pre- and post-show clean up, workers involved such as ticket issuers, ushers and others. (more…)

**Video embed updated

**Post updated with link to downloadable video.

With breaking news out of Palestine today that a top aide to President Mahmoud Abbas has been literally caught with his pants down, rape tapes seem to be popping up all over the pious Muslim world.  And some are
horrifically worse than others.

Last month on the FOX Business Network, Colonel Oliver North revealed a startling piece of information.  Conservative mullahs and elements within the Haqqani terror network – known as the backbone of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Af/Pak theater – are working to take the Haqqanis down from the inside.  Their key weapon is a disturbing video that shows the serial sexual assault of several young girls.

Colonel North explained that no one in American intelligence had yet seen this video.  Here it is:

***STRONGEST POSSIBLE CONTENT WARNING.  NOT SAFE FOR WORK***

DOWNLOAD VIDEO HERE.

Transcript here.

When I travelled to Afghanistan to research my novel, The Apostle, contacts of mine introduced me to a mid-level Taliban commander in the Haqqani network.  Over tea and considerable time talking together, he provided me with some very good, inside-baseball information on the Haqqanis and how their network operates. (more…)

Andrew Breitbart has already welcomed you all to Big Journalism. Now I’d like to add my voice to his.

As you can see from our logo, Big Journalism will be a throwback in spirit to the freewheeling moxie of the glory days of American newspapers, long before a “school of journalism” was a gleam in some college provost’s eye, and before reporters got hired more for their telegenic qualities than their writing, reporting or critical-thinking skills.

So let me be blunt:  we’re not here to compete for Pulitzer Prizes, to sit on committees, to scratch each other’s backs on the weekend television wagfests or to conform to some arbitrary code of ethics cooked up in the days when the mainstream media was the only game in town, and had already begun to cozy up to the government and the establishment, thus abandoning its constitutional mission of keeping a finger on the pulse of America, and an eye on the crooks:

Listen, I spent 25 years working in the MSM, beginning at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, where a young pianist fresh out of the Eastman School of Music was turned into a pretty good police reporter in three months flat.  I made friendships there that have lasted a lifetime, worked with colleagues who went on to become important editors at outfits like Knight-Ridder, the AP and USA Today, as well as national sports columnists and star magazine writers.  I moved on to the San Francisco Examiner where, even as the paper’s classical music critic, I had a front-row seat for some of the biggest stories in recent American history, including the Peoples Temple disaster and the murders of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.  And then I moved to Time Magazine in New York City, where I spent 16 years writing about music and reporting from locations all over the world, particularly Berlin, Eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union.  It was a great life, and I don’t regret a minute of it.

(more…)