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Democrats, Not Trump or His Supporters, Are the Real Extremists


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | MARCH 05, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/05/democrats-not-trump-or-his-supporters-are-the-real-extremists/

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Hot on the heels of a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling on Monday that states have “no power” to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot, Democrats and their lackeys in the corporate press denounced the court for supposedly meddling or interfering in the election.

“Not since Bush v. Gore have we seen a court that’s had this many opportunities to interfere in the election,” said former Rep. Donna Edwards on MSNBC. NBC News’ Ken Dilanian mused that the 9-0 ruling would “be seen by many people as the court essentially interfering in some sense in the election.”

Got that? When Democrats interfere in a presidential election and launch what amounts to an insurrection against the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court steps in and unanimously puts a stop to it, it’s the court, not Democrat activists, who are interfering in the election.

The hypocrisy here is breathtaking but not unexpected. Democrats engage in this kind of projection constantly, taking an extreme position and then decrying any dissent or resistance to it as extremist.

In the Colorado case, two well-funded leftist groups with anodyne names — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Free Speech for People — waged a lawfare campaign with a far-fetched reading of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection clause,” managing to get Colorado’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court to rule in December that Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot. The plan was to do this in numerous states, foreclosing the possibility of Trump’s reelection.

From the outset, it should have been obvious that the legal argument was bogus, a cynical and clumsy ploy to prop up President Biden’s reelection bid by robbing voters of the chance to cast ballots for Trump. It’s hard to imagine anything getting a unanimous ruling on our deeply divided Supreme Court, but these bozos managed to do it — and in the process embarrassed the many corporate media commentators who twisted themselves into pretzels arguing that the Colorado case was strong.

But if we step back a bit and consider all this in the context of nearly every other scheme Democrats have hatched in recent years, it’s possible to see why they thought it was worth a shot. Time and again, Democrats take unprecedented steps and trample every conceivable norm to advance their agenda, and when anyone objects, they label them an extremist or insurrectionist or Christian nationalist (whatever that means). They project onto their opponents, and especially onto Trump, the very things they are actively engaged in doing.

An obvious example of this is when Democrats warn that if Trump is reelected, he’ll use the Department of Justice and the FBI to go after his political rivals. Oh really? This is exactly what the Biden administration has been doing for the past three years to Trump, his lawyers, and his supporters. The criminal cases against Trump are nothing if not the weaponization of the DOJ to crush an unpopular sitting president’s chief political rival.  This weaponization began even before Trump won the White House in 2016. In the waning days of the Obama administration, Democrats used the FBI and the intelligence community to go after the Trump campaign — and continued going after Trump after he won the presidency, perpetuating the Russia-collusion hoax for years with the assistance of a complicit corporate press. If anyone is using the levers of government power to go after their enemies, it’s Democrats, not Trump.

Other examples of Democrat projection abound. After months of letting our cities burn in Black Lives Matter riots, excusing them as “mostly peaceful,” Democrats threw the book at anyone who wandered into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, arresting, jailing, and prosecuting more than a thousand Americans to date, often on flimsy charges that otherwise would hardly merit a fine. Just last week, the FBI arrested Blaze Media investigative reporter Steve Baker for his coverage of Jan. 6, marching him out of Blaze’s Dallas office in handcuffs. Democrats feign outrage at the arrest of The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich in Russia, but they gloat, as NBC News did, when the Biden administration does the same to right-of-center journalists here in America.

Pick almost any controversial issue, and you’ll find the same pattern at work. Democrats flood the internet with disinformation and propaganda about Covid, and then decry dissenting voices (and accompanying data) as agents of disinformation who must be censored and banned by Big Tech. Same thing for what they call “election disinformation,” which merely refers to opinions and data that run counter to their preferred narrative.

Democrats do this with everything.

  • On abortion, they take the extreme position that it should be allowed up until the moment of birth, then denounce Republican-led states that impose restrictions that are the norm across the Western world.
  • On transgenderism, they insist children can consent to genital mutilation and sterilization, then condemn modest efforts to ban or limit these practices as child abuse.
  • On immigration, they throw open the southern border and let 10 million illegal immigrants flood into the country, then attack anyone who suggests we have a crisis at the border and need to secure it.
  • On crime, they defund the police and decriminalize a host of antisocial, destructive behavior in our cities, precipitating a crime wave of robbery and assault, then denounce as racist any arguments for law and order.
  • On racism itself, they tar everyone on the right with the label but look the other way when the racists on their side call for the genocide of the Jews and defend (even celebrate) Hamas terrorist attacks on civilians.

On nearly every major issue today, Democrats are the extremists. Their denunciations of Trump and his supporters rise in direct proportion to their own extremist agenda. The projection is a tactic, a crude rhetorical ruse. Don’t fall for it.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Suzanne Bowdey Op-ed: Pride messaging down 40% from 2022 as boycotts explode


By Suzanne Bowdey, Op-ed contributor| Thursday, July 06, 2023

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/voices/pride-messaging-down-40-from-2022-as-boycotts-explode.html/

A man waves a rainbow flag while observing a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015. | Reuters/Elijah Nouvelage

It was a normal Wednesday commute, crawling across the 14th Street Bridge with thousands of other frustrated D.C. drivers — until out the corner of my eye, I saw the metro glide across the tracks next to us. There, suspended above the Potomac, were eight cars — all wrapped in transgender and rainbow flags — speeding into the most powerful city in the world.

Even now, weeks into this contrived celebration, it was a jarring picture of how insufferable the Pride movement has become. Deep into June, you can’t blame Americans for wondering: When will this train of extremism end?

Like me, Free Republic’s Kristinn Taylor was annoyed to see that even commuters can’t escape the LGBT oversaturation. “DC Metro cars [have] transformed into rolling ‘Pride’ struggle sessions,” she protested on Twitter. And according to a new poll, she’s not alone. Pride fatigue is real, The Trafalgar Group found, and it’s across the board.

In a new survey, Robert Cahaly’s group asked more than 1,000 people (who leaned Democratic by 4%) if they’re sick of the public LGBT pandering. A whopping 62% said yes, they just wished companies would stay neutral. Only 23% think corporations should continue on with their extreme political themes.

Equally as damning — at least for the CEOs still clinging to their offensive activism (think Nike, Target, Kohl’s) — are the massive swaths of consumers who are avoiding leftist brands. While 41% of all voters say they’ve “personally boycotted a company that took a public stance on a cultural or political issue they disagree with,” almost 70% are Republicans, who’ve refused to shop with “progressive” businesses. Forty percent of non-affiliated voters admitted to doing the same.

That’s a sizeable gap in pushback compared to Democrats, who are much less likely (45%) to punish “conservative or MAGA-leaning” businesses. Interestingly, 14% of Joe Biden’s party admitted to joining Republicans in abandoning overly woke companies — a surprisingly high cross-over rate that shows just how much radical CEOs have overplayed their hand on issues like transgenderism.

And the farther we get into June, the more intense the backlash has become. Shoppers everywhere have made punching bags out of Bud Light and Target — forcing several of American brands to reconsider just how much capital they’re willing to sacrifice. As the losses to those brands dip into the multi-billions, there’s a growing sense that businesses are getting the message.

According to Bloomberg, brands are dramatically toning down their Pride promotion from last year. In the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney scandal in April, “references to ‘Pride Month’ in filings, presentations and transcripts from April to June at more than 900 of the largest US companies dropped almost 40% from this time last year, the first decline in five years. Other LGBTQ terms showed similar declines, the analysis found.”

That’s a seismic shift for the U.S. market and an enormous victory for grassroots Americans who’ve finally put their dollars where their values are. As Dr. Ben Carson said on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch,” these big brands have finally been forced to reevaluate their purpose — and, just as importantly, their loyalties. “Corporate America has a very important purpose, and that is to reward their stockholders. Now, they can’t necessarily do that if they have another agenda — like being social manipulators. And I think they’re starting to recognize that. And I’m glad to see also that the people are pushing back.”

The Bud Light disaster, Target’s trans outreach, “all of these things,” Carson pointed out, “are wake-up calls for corporate America to get back to doing what they’re supposed to be doing and stop meddling. You know, one of the reasons that our country was established is because people wanted to come to a place where they could live the life that they wanted to live without it being manipulated and without all kinds of mandates. And whether those mandates come from the government or from corporate America, they still have a deleterious effect on the freedoms that people experience.”

“And the only people who can change that is we the people … We have to put our foot down and say, this is America. This is where we are free to live the way that we want to, to worship the way we want to, to say what we want to say. And we’re not going to stand for government or corporate America to try to dictate [what we think and believe].”

No one has been in that bullseye more than Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, who called the crashing and burning of his brand a “challenging few weeks” on Fox. And while he has yet to apologize for the firestorm that Bud Light started by embracing transgenderism, he does accept the blame for the devastating consequences of that decision. “We have to understand the impact that it’s had … on our employees, the impact on our consumers, and as well the impact on our partners,” he said. “One thing I’d love to make extremely clear is that impact is my responsibility and as the CEO, everything we do here I’m accountable for.”

“There’s a big social conversation taking place right now,” Whitworth acknowledged, “and big brands are right in the middle of it. And it’s not just our industry or Bud Light. It’s happening in retail, happening in fast food. And so for us, what we need to understand is — deeply understand and appreciate — is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands.”

What they expect, the polls have shown since 2021, is neutrality. When a good 40% of your consumer base ups and walks away, there should be plenty of motivation for corporations to sit down and rethink their politics.

“Most Americans respond to relentless, preachy marketing from businesses trying to virtue signal their progressive bona fides like they respond to street preachers thumping a Bible,” Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand. “But the LGBTQ movement, like the street preacher, doesn’t care because they have simply decided anyone who rejects their message is going to hell. The LGBT movement has become what they claim to hate, but they haven’t recognized it yet.”

In the meantime, what they and everyone else can’t help but recognize is Americans’ buying power. May it continue to be the bridle that holds the woke in check.

Originally published at The Washington Stand. 

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer for The Washington Stand. In her role, she drafts commentary on topics such as life, consumer activism, media and entertainment, sexuality, education, religious freedom, and other issues that affect the institutions of marriage and family. Over the past 20 years at FRC, her op-eds have been featured in publications ranging from the Washington Times to The Christian Post. Suzanne is a graduate of Taylor University in Upland, Ind., with majors in both English Writing and Political Science.

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Conservatives fear extremism in military debate is ‘political theater’ to target Christians


Reported by Abraham Mahshie | Washington Examiner | March 25, 2021

Read more at https://1776coalition.com/rise-up-1/conservatives-fear-extremism-in-military-debate-is-political-theater-to-target-christians/

Conservative lawmakers lambasted Democrats over a hearing on extremism in the military on Wednesday, claiming it was merely “political theater” and fearing that Catholic and evangelical service members will be targeted in a crackdown by the Left.

About 20% of the arrests related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots were of current or former members of the military, who are frequently the targets of aggressive recruiting by extremist white nationalist groups. Regulations already exist to root out service members who espouse violent extremist behaviors. Conservative House Armed Services Committee members are now worried that lacking definitions and metrics from the Defense Department, Democrats will mount a crusade that targets some of the military’s religious members.

“We lack any concrete evidence that violent extremism is as ripe in the military as some commentators claim,” said House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mike Rogers of Alabama.

“Legislative attempts to further crack down on domestic terrorism is going to run headlong into the First Amendment rights of our service members,” he added.

Rogers noted that since fiscal year 2020, only nine soldiers have been separated from the Army for problems related to extremism.

One witness, Michael Berry, a Marine Corps veteran and attorney for the First Liberty Institute, warned that the First Amendment rights of service members, particularly Catholic and evangelical soldiers, could be at risk.

“Expanding anti-extreme efforts to punish thought or belief is risky,” he said.

“The U.S. Army produced training materials that labeled evangelical Christians and Catholics as religious extremists alongside Hamas and al Qaeda, never mind the fact that evangelicals and Catholics continue to comprise the majority of those serving in uniform today,” he said. “Labeling religious or political beliefs that are held by tens of millions of Americans as extremists is to declare them unwelcome and unfit to serve is to say, ‘Uncle Sam does not want you.’”

Texas Republican Rep. Pat Fallon made a full-throated attack on the credibility of the witnesses and implied that the hearing was launched by liberals to root out conservative ideologies in the military.

“This isn’t a hearing about the readiness of our armed forces. It’s nothing more, unfortunately, than political theater,” he said.

Following the Capitol riot, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for a 60-day stand-down across the force to discuss extremism in the ranks, but he did not provide guidance or ask for data to be collected. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that soldiers of all beliefs are welcome in the military and will be protected by Austin, himself a witness to extremism as a former commander.

“This isn’t about religion, and it’s not about politics,” he said.

“The suggestion that this would have anything to do with the God you worship or don’t is anathema to the whole effort,” he added. “This is about, again, ideology that inspires conduct that is prejudicial to good order and discipline and puts our teammates in harm’s way.”

Audrey Kurth Cronin, an American University professor who studies how extremist groups recruit on the internet, said a major problem within the Defense Department is the lack of a definition for extremism and metrics to measure it.

“The 2020 Capitol insurrection leaves the impression that the number of extremists in the military is increasing,” she said. “Yet DoD officials repeatedly claim that the number is small. No one truly knows. No serious plan can be built without defining the scope of the problem.”

As Austin’s 60-day deadline nears, the Pentagon has yet to disclose what it has learned, but Kirby assured that the secretary would be defending the constitutional rights of all soldiers.

“He’s well aware of First Amendment rights and free speech and freedom of religion,” he said, noting that service members are entitled to the same rights as civilians. “Part of the whole reason for the military is to defend this country and to defend the ideals upon which this country was founded.”

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Feds Enlist Schools in War on “Extremist” Children


waving flagWritten by    Friday, 11 March 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/22745-feds-enlist-schools-in-war-on-extremist-children

Feds Enlist Schools in War on “Extremist” Children / Photo: AP Images

In one of its most Orwellian schemes to date, the Obama administration is taking a page from Communist East Germany’s infamous Statsi by asking school teachers to start spying on American students so “extremists” can be reported to the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies. Among others in the federal government’s cross-hairs: pro-life activists, anarchists, environmentalists, animal-rights activists, Muslims, religious students critical of “Western corruption,” constitutionalists, and even children who simply criticize or question authorities too much.of domenstic terrorist

In a January 2016 unclassified FBI document about “preventing violent extremism in schools,” the FBI comes across as paranoiacs imagining that there are “extremist” children hiding under every bed. “High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support for their radical ideologies,” claims the agency, which has become increasingly politicized under the Obama administration. “High schools must remain vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist beliefs.” It claims there is a “very fine line” between protected speech and thought crimes.

Much of the document sounds unhinged and downright preposterous. For example, the document frets about “violent propaganda,” suggesting the federal government now believes free speech can somehow be violent. The FBI scheme also warns that children are supposedly “embracing violent extremism by maintaining biases towards others due to their race, religion, or sexual orientation.” In other words, mere disapproval of homosexuality, Islam, and more can now considered “extremism,” and the Obama FBI wants schools and teachers to join the war on such “extremism.” In Communist East Germany, the murderous dictatorship and its “State Security” agency, known as the Statsi, were also infamous for using teachers as snitches in adition to their brainwashing duties.

The Obama FBI warns schools that “more youth” are supposedly ready to “embrace extremist ideologies.” Some of them even “view hatred” as an “acceptable outlet for their grievances.” Why the FBI believes its job description includes students’ ideologies, biases, or hatreds is not made clear in the document, despite the ham-handed effort to equate “ideologies” the government dislikes — such as “anti-government views” and “abortion [pro-life] extremism” — with terrorism and violence. The Obama administration has previously claimed that returning veterans, constitutionalists, pro-life activists, liberty lovers, people suspicious of federal authority, anti-immigration activists, Ron Paul supporters, and others are extremists or even potential terrorists, too.

Of course, as The New American reported in 2014, much of the “terrorism” that does exist in the United States today is actually attributable directly to the FBI. Indeed, the U.S. government often manufactures and creates the alleged “terrorism threats” it purports to be fighting, in some cases even prodding mentally challenged dupes into bogus “plots” that authorities concocted in the first place. A report by Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute found that almost every high-profile domestic terror case across America between the September 11 attacks and the 2014 report featured the “direct involvement” of government agents or informants. In some cases, virtually the entire “terrorism” plot — from start to finish — was actually led and financed by government operatives.

Those troubling facts aside, the Obama FBI claims to be “committed” to helping schools with “extremism.” Among other ways to address it, the agency calls for enhancing “student social and emotional well-being,” code words for sending in swarms of tax-funded psychiatrists and psychologists. The document also pushes more “information sharing” on American children between government agencies, as if not enough of that was going on. It seeks to “deter youth from embracing extremist ideologies,” too, with “extremist ideologies” defined by the same federal bureaucracies packed full of anti-Constitution extremists.

If finding extremism is the goal, though, a good place to start would be the Obama administration. Obama, of course, famously launched his political career in the home of confessed communist terrorist Bill Ayers, whose Castro-backed terror group, the Weather Underground, murdered police officers and bombed multiple federal facilities. According to the FBI’s Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the terrorist group, the Weathermen, as they were called, were hoping to round up and exterminate millions of “counter-revolutionaries” with help from the regimes in Cuba, Moscow, Beijing, and more. Now that is violent extremism. But that is not the sort of extremism the Obama FBI wants teachers to seek out.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to shower weapons and money on violent extremist dictatorships and U.S.-designated terror groups across the Middle East and worldwide. From a deliberate plan to create an Islamist principality in Eastern Syria (now known as ISIS) to unlawfully supporting multiple communist and Islamist terror groups officially designated as banned terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, Obama has violated multiple federal terror laws under various pretexts.

Ironically, the FBI’s definition of “violent extremism” in the document —  “encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals” — could quite properly be applied to dozens of actions perpetrated by the Obama administration, maybe more. From arming jihadists in Syria and bombing Libya to smithereens in an alliance with al-Qaeda without congressional approval, to admittedly arming the communist PKK, al-Qaeda, and even Mexican drug cartels in Operation Fast and Furious, Obama has flagrantly and repeatedly defied federal terror laws. An everyday citizen would be in prison for a long time.of domenstic terrorist

But instead of investigating those clear, admitted federal crimes, the FBI apparently prefers to focus on schoolkids who question government or disagree with homosexuality.

The FBI does pretend to be inclusive in its search for extremists in schools. It claims to be looking for movements “including but not limited to white supremacists, animal rights and eco-terrorists, and anti-government or radical separatist groups.” So-called “violations,” the document continues, include “hate-based activities.” It was not clear when the FBI imagines that “hate” became a crime. And while it may sound nice to persecute haters, the document itself suggests that the sort of “hate” the Obama administration is seeking out involves, among others elements, “biases” against “sexual orientation.”

In short, Christians with a biblical worldview who disagree with the notion of a homosexual “marriage” are in the cross-hairs. The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which praises communist terrorist Bill Ayers on its website and works with tentacles of the Obama administration, regularly labels mainstream Christian groups as “hate groups” for their religious beliefs on the sanctity of marriage. And the FBI document is packed with SPLC-style rhetoric, even going so far as to attack the influence of families and parents on their children. It says, for example, that the beliefs of adults who embrace “extremist ideologies” can “permeate family norms, oftentimes influencing children.” If you disagree with Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of America, they are looking at you. Aside from parental influence, “unobserved space” and the Internet are both key targets.

When students do display views and attitudes the Obama administration dislikes, the FBI calls on schools to create “intervention” plans in conjunction with federal and state agencies. “An intervention cadre should contain professionals from the local community representing multiple disciplines such as mental health, social workers, law enforcement, school resource officers, faith-based organizations, and/or crisis intervention teams,” the document states. Schools should also report children to law enforcement.

The news that the FBI was conscripting teachers in their hunt for “extremist” children made headlines worldwide. In the United States, across media outlets ranging from Alternet on the far-left to alternative liberty-minded sources such as Infowars, commentators slammed the FBI’s scheme as an assault on civil liberties and common sense. Even media outlets backed and controlled by authoritarian-minded governments — Kremlin-run news services, for example, and even media controlled by Iran’s mullahs — seized on the document to paint the U.S. government as increasingly unhinged and totalitarian.

Critics from across the political spectrum also blasted the FBI plot. Anti-“Islamophobia” author Arun Kundnani, for example, slammed the government for drawing on “the junk science of radicalization models” and noted that the document “dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological expression and violent criminal actions.” ACLU staff attorney Hugh Handeyside with the left-wing outfit’s national security project, meanwhile, said that “broadening the definition of violent extremism to include a range of belief-driven violence underscores that the FBI is diving head-first into community spying.” “Framing this conduct as ‘concerning behavior’ doesn’t conceal the fact that the FBI is policing students’ thoughts and trying to predict the future based on those thoughts,” Handeyside added. Kurt Nimmo at Infowars, citing whistle-blowers from the intelligence community, highlighted the parallels between the increasingly extreme tactics and machinations of the U.S. government and those used by the brutal communist dictatorship that terrorized East Germany for generations.

Even more extreme “extremism” scheming is happening in the United Kingdom, where authorities are telling teachers to report students with negative views on homosexuality to police and social services. More recently, U.K. authorities, as part of their war on so-called “non-violent extremism,” launched a crackdown on homeschooling families and even Christian Sunday schools, which must now register with the government. Prime Minster David Cameron even asked the United Nations — primarily composed of extremist non-democratic governments of various varieties, such as communist, socialist, Islamist, and military dictatorships — to help wage a global jihad on what he called “non-violent extremism.” Obama and the UN teamed up to launch a planetary war on “ideologies,” too.

In the United States, virtually everyone with an opinion has been declared a potential terrorist or extremist by the Obama administration in recent years. The U.S. Defense Department was even caught teaching U.S. troops that Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews were “religious extremists” like al-Qaeda and Hamas. And now, the discredited SPLC, widely criticized as an “anti-Christian hate group” or a money-making scam, is working with Obama’s new domestic “terror” czar to target conservatives, Christians, libertarians, constitutionalists, and others the SPLC hates. The SPLC’s propaganda was also cited in 2012 by a convicted anti-Christian terrorist who attempted to slaughter employees at the pro-family Family Research Council.

Buried within all of the extreme rhetoric urging schools to wage war on ideologies the government does not like, there may be some information that might be useful, perhaps. However, the document paints a picture of a federal government that is totally out of control, suggesting that assaults on liberty, privacy, thought crimes, and people who disagree with out-of-control government will soon accelerate without concerted action to rein in Washington, D.C.

Schools and all Americans should reject the Obama administration’s fear-mongering and extremism. Instead, parents and concerned citizens should work to educate others about the dangers of totalitarian government, and hold officials accountable to the U.S. Constitution they all swore to uphold.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at: anewman@thenewamerican.com .

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Al-Qaeda: ‘Spreading Like Wildfire’


http://blog.heritage.org/2014/04/14/al-qaeda/

Reported by

April 14, 2014 at 3:30 pm

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on March 17, 2012, shows fire fighters at the scene following a two bomb attacks on security buildings in the heart of the Syrian capital Damascus which killed several people, state television said. AFP PHOTO/HO

Last week, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee held a hearing provocatively titled “Is Al-Qaeda Winning?” The answers that the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade received were profoundly unsettling.

Former Senator Joseph Lieberman (I–Conn.) testified that Syria had become a key focal point of al-Qaeda’s efforts. He noted that there are more foreign militants fighting in Syria today than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over the past 10 years:  “Put very bluntly, Syria has become the most dangerous terrorist sanctuary in the world today—and the United States has not coherent or credible policy for dealing with it.”

>>> Read More: The Arab Spring Descends into Islamist Winter: Implications for U.S. Policy

Frederick Kagan, director of the critical threats project at the American Enterprise Institute, warned that the Obama Administration has underestimated the threat posed by al-Qaeda’s ideology, which has inspired a global insurgency. He assessed that al-Qaeda’s “brand is spreading like wildfire, the groups affiliating themselves with it control more fighters, land and wealth than they ever have, and they are opening up new fronts.”

Dear Mr President

Heritage Foundation analysts long have warned about the more permissive environment that al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups have exploited in many countries destabilized by the “Arab Spring” uprisings.  Syria, in particular, has been a magnet for foreign militants and a rich recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.

>>> Read More: A Counterterrorism Strategy for the “Next Wave”

Al-Qaeda has made a comeback in Iraq, and gained followers in Egypt, Libya, Mali, East Africa, and Yemen

The chief takeaway from the hearing was that the Obama Administration needs to focus more on the revolutionary threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the Middle East and Africa. Furthermore, the administration should alter its narrow definition of the al-Qaeda threat, which it currently holds as the immediate terrorist threat posed by the al-Qaeda core group based in Pakistan.

Related:
Al-Qaeda Seeks American Recruits in Syria
Al-Qaeda Resurges in Iraq
These Words from Obama Are Frightening—and Revealing

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Controlling Religious Thoughts – Is Government Creating a Program to do that?


http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/controlling-religious-thoughts-government-creating-program/#ixzz2i0XoMbw9

Is the U.S. Government working on a program to…well…program the way you view religion?

A whistleblower who has worked on that program says yes, and he wants you to know exactly what has been going on.

The first towards truth is to be informed.

Controlling Religious Thoughts – Is Government Creating a Program to do that?If I told you that the Defense Department was using taxpayer dollars to learn how to influence people with religious beliefs in order to control those beliefs, would it really surprise you?

Would you think that I am a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist?

Would you care if I told you that the program was aimed at controlling fundamentalist Muslims?

How about fundamentalist Christians?

The first step toward truth is to be informed.

Here’s the backstory. In 2012, Arizona State University’s Center for Strategic Communication or CSC was awarded a $6.1 million dollar research grant by DARPA or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The goal of the project according to ASUʼs website is to “study the neurobiology of narrative comprehension, validate narrative theories and explore the connection between narrative and persuasion.”

A lot of technical talk there, so let’s dig into the details.

The CSC program is actually about creating narratives, using effective communication, largely video, to control the thought process of groups of people. And ultimately to be able to trigger narratives through magnetic stimulation. At its core, the program is focused on how to win the narrative against Muslim extremism. It’s a fairly interesting concept.

According to documents leaked to us, this project integrates insights from three mutually-informing theoretical terrains.
In short, the goal of the program is to combat and change religious narratives because of their role in “extremist behavior.” The whistleblower who revealed this program to us worked for several years on the program. They asked not to be identified.

Ben: What were you told about the proposal as you began working through it?

Whistleblower: Yeah, I thought that it was benign. They told me it was about trying to figure out what parts of the brain are affected by narrative persuasion. Just to figure it out just for academic reasons. So we looked at narrative transportation which is basically how an individual is transported into a narrative, how they understand it…kind of like when you read a good book you get really enthralled with it.

At its core, the program attempts to map the brain to determine which portions of the brain allow you to accept a narrative presented to you. It’s called narrative theory.

Mapping this network will lead to a fuller understanding of the influence narrative has on memory, emotion, theory of mind, identity and persuasion, which in turn influence the decision to engage in political violence or join violent groups or support groups ideologically or financially.

You see, the project is focused on the belief that the reason Muslims in the Middle East are swayed to religious violence is not because of the reality of what is going on around them per se, but because they are believing a local or a regional narrative.

Ben: The local and regional narrative then is that the brain automatically assumes things because of a narrative we’ve been taught since our childhood, is that it?

Whistleblower: Right yeah, that’s true. We call those master narratives. So in America we have this “rags to riches” master narrative where if you work really hard you can become successful and make a ton of money. So in the Middle East, they always use the example of the Pharaoh. That’s the master narrative that’s in the Qur’an, where there’s this corrupt leader that, you know, is really bad for society. And they use the example of Sadat, who was assassinated. When the assassin killed him, he said, “I have killed the Pharaoh, I have killed the Pharaoh.” So they assume that he was relying upon this Islamic master narrative to fuel his actions.

So how does the program change this? Again a lot of technical speak here so stay with me. But it’s broken into three phases.

Phase I is to map the Narrative Comprehension Network using a set of stimuli designed from the point of view of two different religious cultures.

Phase II will test hypotheses generated in Phase I, adding two additional manipulations of narrative validity and narrative transportation.

Phase III, it investigates possibilities for literally disrupting the activity of the NCN through Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Ben: Phase III is fairly interesting. I noticed in the documentation it says let’s not talk too much about this because who knows if we’ll ever get there. But when you do read what Phase III is it is a little surprising, it’s called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. This is not something that’s science fiction; it’s not something they’ve cooked up. This is a real technique that’s already been used in the past, correct?

Whistleblower: Yes, it started out in the psychiatry field when people were depressed and when you’re depressed certain parts of your brain are not functioning correctly. So they created this technology, which is basically a big magnet, and you put it on their brain and it turns off that part of the brain that’s bad or wrong, and it would help them with their depression for several weeks to a month, and they’d go back and do it again. So this technology has been around for ten or fifteen years.

Ben: So it’s very high tech propaganda, what we’re talking about.

Whistleblower: High tech and validated propaganda, yes. So if they’re able to turn off a part of the brain and get rid of that master narrative that will make you not believe in a particular statement, they would have validated this propaganda. So if they turn off portion X, they know that the propaganda is going to work, and the individual is going to believe whatever is being told to them.

So why do all this? It’s because the project is based on the idea that despite the good work of the U.S. in the Middle East, the message of the work is not being received.

“The frequent rejection of US messaging by local populations in the Middle East, despite US insistence on the objective truth of the US message, illustrates the narrative paradigm at work. The well documented ‘say-do gap’ between US messages and US actions is seen by some as contributing to a lack of narrative validity in stories produced by the US. Similarly, stories of US aid do not ring true in a culture wherein Christian foreigners, since the 11th Century, have been invaders and sought to destroy and rule.”

So how to fix this?

Ben: How do you move someone from simply watching a video or seeing a video all the way down that line to behavior? It’s a pretty powerful tool if you’re able to do that.

Whistleblower: Right, so they think that maybe an extremist statements or a video like Al Qaeda puts out will lead to some individuals doing a suicide bombing, for example. So they’re trying to look at this video or the statements and take away a part of your brain that will think that it fits in with your culture or master narrative and that will hopefully lead you to not do these extremist, violent acts.

So what you need to know is that this program boils down to one central idea. If people aren’t reaching the conclusions the U.S. government would like them to reach, there must be a way to force them to accept these narratives.

Remember that the claim is that the U.S. despite giving aid is viewed in the Middle East as invaders. That, according to the program research is the product of embedded narrative, not a result of action.

So the view of the U.S. as invaders in countries where we have standing armies, dozens of military bases, the U.S. paying off drug lords in Afghanistan or regional warlords in Iraq or where we consistently bomb via drone strike in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia or where we fund dictators until those dictators are overthrown and then attempt to fund the rebels, who end up becoming dictators.

All of that has nothing to do with the U.S. view of Muslims in the Middle East because clearly they are missing the fact that the U.S. gives aid.

The next step, control the narrative and if necessary, use magnetic stimulation to force people to accept the view of the U.S. that we desire them to have.

After all, aren’t extremist Muslims dangerous? Extremist Christians? See the problem with the question is who gets to define extremist? Who decides if religious beliefs are inherently dangerous?

And if we believe that government should have the power to control how the extremist thinks… wouldn’t they have the authority to decide how and what we all think?

Sources: We cannot post the leaked documents from the program here because ASU has claimed intellectual property infringement.

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/controlling-religious-thoughts-government-creating-program/#mvBZWfuyCX4bwlbK.99

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Defense Department Documents: “Extremists” Speak About “individual Liberties, States’ Rights &How to Make the World a Better Place”


By Tim Brown: // http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/08/defense-department-documents-extremists-speak-individual-liberties-states-rights-make-world-better-place/

Conservative Watchdog group Judicial Watch has obtained United States Defense Department education materials that expose the indoctrination that is being attempted within their ranks. The documents warn of “extremists” who “talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”

The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) that was filed on April 8, 2013. The FOIA requested “Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force.”

Judicial Watch claims that the Defense Department is teaching that conservative and liberty-minded individuals’ views are “extremist.”

Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, a Defense Department-funded diversity training center, reportedly authored the materials. On top of that they cite the racist, hate group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as their source for defining “hate groups.” Isn’t that telling?

SPLC, a hate group unto themselves, identified the Family research Council (FRC) as a hate group on its website, along with other well-known conservative organizations such as the American Family Association, concerned Women for America, and Coral Ridge Ministries. SPLC cannot stand for people to tell the truth about abortion being murder and homosexuality being a perversion. As a result of their identifying FRC in this manner, 28 year old year old Floyd Lee Corkins II, used his computer to access SPLC’s website to target FRC and other organizations. He then went into the FRC building wanting to kill as many people as possible, then smear their faces with Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and kill the guard. He was able to wound the guard, Leo Johnson, but Johnson was still able to subdue him until police arrived.

There are 133 pages of lesson plans and PowerPoint slides provided by the Air Force. Included in those plans is a January 2013 Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute “student guide” titled “Extremism,” which begins on page 32 of the downloadable PDF. Though the documentation reads “do not use on the job” and “for training purposes only,” it does cause one to wonder why the Defense Department would invest so much money and time into “education materials” that are not to be used.

Following Corkins conviction, FRC President Tony Perkins said the SPLC “can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence.”

“The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarters and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a ‘hate group,’” Perkins said.

Judicial Watch highlights some of the sections:

  • The document defines extremists as “a person who advocates the use of force or violence; advocates supremacist causes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or national origin; or otherwise engages to illegally deprive individuals or groups of their civil rights.”
  • A statement that “Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publically espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”
  • “[W]hile not all extremist groups are hate groups, all hate groups are extremist groups.”
  • Under a section labeled ”Extremist Ideologies” the document states, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements.  The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”
  • In this same section, the document lists the 9/11 attack under a category of “Historical events.”
  • “[A]ctive participation…with regard to extremist organizations is incompatible with military service and, is therefore prohibited.” [Emphasis in original]
  • The document details the “seven stages of hate” and sixteen “extremists’ traits.”
  • The SPLC is listed as a resource for information on hate groups and referenced several times throughout the guide.
  • Of the five organizations besides the SPLC listed as resources, one is an SPLC project (Teaching Tolerance) and one considers any politically or socially conservative movement to be a potential hate group (Political Research Associates).

Other than a mention of 9/11 and the Sudan, there is no discussion of Islamic extremism.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the “Obama administration has a nasty habit of equating basic conservative values with terrorism.”

“And now, in a document full of claptrap, its Defense Department suggests that the Founding Fathers, and many conservative Americans, would not be welcome in today’s military,” he added. “And it is striking that some the language in this new document echoes the IRS targeting language of conservative and Tea Party investigations. After reviewing this document, one can’t help but worry for the future and morale of our nation’s armed forces.”

About Tim Brown: Husband to my wife. Father of 10. Jack of All Trades. Christian and lover of liberty. Residing in the U.S. occupied Great State of South Carolina.

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