April 20, 2015

Hillary Clinton's 1969 Thesis on Saul Alinsky

“THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT…”

An Analysis of the Alinsky Model

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree under the Special Honors Program, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Hillary D. Rodham

Political Science

2 May, 1969

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which

One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate

With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mass of imprecision of feeling,

Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate–but there is no competition–There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements………………………………… i

Chapter

I. SAUL DAVID ALINSKY: AN AMERICAN RADICAL . 1

II. THE ALINSKY METHOD OF ORGANIZING: THREE

CASE STUDIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

III. “A PRIZE PIECE OF POLITICALPORNOGRAPHY”. . 44

IV. PERSPECTIVES ON ALINSKY AND HIS MODEL. . . 53

V. REALIZING LIFE AFTER BIRTH . . . . . . . . 68

Appendices……………………………………… 76

Bibliography……………………………………. 84

24 things that require a photo ID

BY ASHE SCHOW | AUGUST 14, 2013 | 12:00 AM

Voter-ID laws continue to get a lot of attention, and proponents of the law are being drowned out by opponents claiming the laws discriminate against certain voters.

Rather than getting IDs to the people who are supposedly disenfranchised, opponents spend their efforts trying to end the laws, even though polls consistently show overwhelming majorities of voters approve of the laws.

Below are just some of the examples of things you need to prove your identity for:

1. Alcohol

2. Cigarettes

3. Opening a bank account

4. Apply for food stamps

5. Apply for welfare

6. Apply for Medicaid/Social Security

7. Apply for unemployment or a job

8. Rent/buy a house, apply for a mortgage

9. Drive/buy/rent a car

10. Get on an airplane

11. Get married

12. Purchase a gun

13. Adopt a pet

14. Rent a hotel room

15. Apply for a hunting license

16. Apply for a fishing license

17. Buy a cell phone

18. Visit a casino

19. Pick up a prescription

20. Hold a rally or protest

21. Blood donations

22. Buy an "M" rated video game

23. Purchase nail polish at CVS

24. Purchase certain cold medicines

But not to vote?

March 29, 2015

Here is the full text of Indiana’s “religious freedom” law.

SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 101

AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning civil procedure.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana:

SECTION1.IC34-13-9 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW CHAPTER TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2015]:

Chapter 9. Religious Freedom Restoration

Sec. 1. This chapter applies to all governmental entity statutes, ordinances, resolutions, executive or administrative orders, regulations, customs, and usages, including the implementation or application thereof, regardless of whether they were enacted, adopted, or initiated before, on, or after July 1, 2015.

Sec. 2. A governmental entity statute, ordinance, resolution, executive or administrative order, regulation, custom, or usage may not be construed to be exempt from the application of this chapter unless a state statute expressly exempts the statute, ordinance, resolution, executive or administrative order, regulation, custom, or usage from the application of this chapter by citation to this chapter.

Sec. 3. (a) The following definitions apply throughout this section: (1) "Establishment Clause" refers to the part of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Indiana prohibiting laws respecting the establishment of religion. (2) "Granting", used with respect to government funding, benefits, or exemptions, does not include the denial of government funding, benefits, or exemptions. (b) This chapter may not be construed to affect, interpret, or in any way address the Establishment Clause. (c) Granting government funding, benefits, or exemptions, to the extent permissible under the Establishment Clause, does not constitute a violation of this chapter.

Sec. 4. As used in this chapter, "demonstrates"means meets the burdens of going forward with the evidence and of persuasion.

Sec. 5. As used in this chapter, "exercise of religion" includes any exercise of religion,whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.

Sec. 6. As used in this chapter, "governmental entity" includes the whole or any part of a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, official, or other individual or entity acting under color of law of any of the following: (1) State government. (2) A political subdivision (as defined in IC 36-1-2-13). (3) An instrumentality of a governmental entity described in subdivision(1) or (2), including a state educational institution, a body politic, a body corporate and politic, or any other similar entity established by law.

Sec. 7. As used in this chapter, "person" includes the following: (1) An individual. (2) An organization, a religious society, a church, a body of communicants, or a group organized and operated primarily for religious purposes. (3) A partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a joint-stock company, an unincorporated association, or another entity that: (A) may sue and be sued; and (B) exercises practices that are compelled or limited by a system of religious belief held by: (i) an individual; or (ii) the individuals; who have control and substantial ownership of the entity, regardless of whether the entity is organized and operated for profit or nonprofit purposes.

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Sec. 9. A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding. If the relevant governmental entity is not a party to the proceeding, the governmental entity has an unconditional right to intervene in order to respond to the person's invocation of this chapter.

Sec. 10. (a) If a court or other tribunal in which a violation of this chapter is asserted in conformity with section 9 of this chapter determines that: (1) the person's exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened; and (2) the governmental entity imposing the burden has not demonstrated that application of the burden to the person: (A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest; the court or other tribunal shall allow a defense against any party and shall grant appropriate relief against the governmental entity. (b) Relief against the governmental entity may include any of the following: (1) Declaratory relief or an injunction or mandate that prevents, restrains, corrects, or abates the violation of this chapter. (2) Compensatory damages. (c) In the appropriate case,the court or other tribunal also may award all or part of the costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney's fees, to a person that prevails against the governmental entity under this chapter.

Sec. 11. This chapter is not intended to, and shall not be construed or interpreted to, create a claim or private cause of action against any private employer by any applicant, employee, or former employee.

103RD CONGRESS
1ST SESSION

H.R. 1308

To Protect the free exercise of religion.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 11, 1993

[co-sponsors]
Mr. MCKEON, and Mr. GALLO introduced the following bill, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
A BILL
To protect the free exercise of religion.

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993".

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF PURPOSES.

(a) FINDINGS.--The Congress finds

(1) the framers of the American Constitution, recognizing free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution;

(2) laws "neutral" toward religion may substantially burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise;

(3) governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification;

(4) in Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the requirement that the government justify burdens on religious exercise imposed by laws naeutral toward religion; and

(5) the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner and Wisconsin v. Yoder is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing governmental interests.
(b) PURPOSES. -- The purposes of this Act are --

(1) to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Federal court cases before Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith and to guarantee its application in all cases where free exercise of religion is substantially burdened; and

(2) to provide a claim or defense to persons whose religious exercise is substantially burdened by government.
SEC. 3. FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION PROTECTED.

(a) IN GENERAL. -- Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b).

(b) EXCEPTION. -- Government may burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person --

(1) furthers a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
(c) JUDICIAL RELIEF. -- A person whose religious exercise has been substantially burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.
SEC. 4. ATTORNEY FEES.

(a) JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS. -- Section 722 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (42 U.S.C. 1988) is amended by inserting "the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993," before "or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964".

(b) ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS. -- Section 504(b)(1)(C) of title 5, United States Code, is amended --

(1) by striding "and" at the end of clause (ii);

(2) by striking the semicolon at the end of clause (iii) and inserting "; and"; and

(3) by inserting "(iv) the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993" after clause (iii).
SEC. 5 DEFINITIONS.

As used in this Act --

(1) the term "government" includes a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States, a State, or a subdivision of a State;

(2) the term "State" includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each territory and possession of the United States;

(3) the term "demonstrates" means meets the burdens of going forward with the evidence and of persuasion; and

(4) the term "exercise of religion" means exercise of religion under the first article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

SEC. 6. APPLICABILITY.

(a) IN GENERAL. -- This Act applies to all Federal and State law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether adopted before or after the enactment of this Act.

(b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. -- Federal statutory law adopted after the date of the enactment of this Act is subject to this Act unless such law explicitly excludes such application by reference to this Act.

(c) RELIGIOUS BELIEF UNAFFECTED. -- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize any government to substantially burden any religious belief.
SEC. 7. ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE UNAFFECTED.

(a) IN GENERAL. -- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect, interpret, or in any way address that portion of the First Amendment prohibiting laws respecting the establishment of religion. Granting government funding, benefits, or exemptions, to the extent permissible under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, shall not constitute a violation of this Act.

(b) DEFINITION. -- As used in this section, the term "granting government funding, benefits, or exemptions" does not include a denial of government funding, benefits, or exemptions.
Rainbow Regulation Page
Rainbow Home Page

* 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue * Current Eve

March 17, 2015

Village clerk fired over Ferguson shooting comments

POSTED 7:01 PM, MARCH 17, 2015, BY SHAWNDREA THOMAS, UPDATED AT 06:58PM, MARCH 17, 2015

Meeting Video

“This was a unanimous decision of the board to terminate John Muhammad as clerk. The reason for the termination is he continued to misrepresent his position as city administrator and manager rather than village clerk” said Magee.

“John Muhammad does not speak for the Village of Uplands Park. We’re glad they caught the person that did this to the officers and wish both a speedy recovery.” Said Spurling.

Muhammad did ask to retrieve his belongings then quickly left the building. Uplands Park has a population of 447 residents. Now the number of village employees has dropped from three to two.

March 10, 2015

Ferguson fake-out: Justice Department’s bogus report

By John R. Lott Jr.

March 9, 2015 | 8:37pm

Ferguson fake-out: Justice Department’s bogus report

Still pushing dubious charges: Attorney General Eric Holder's "proof" of racism in the Ferguson, Mo., police department doesn't hold up.Photo: Getty Images

Addressing the nation from Selma, Ala., on Saturday, President Obama said that while racism may be “no longer endemic,” as it was 50 years ago, his Justice Department’s report on Ferguson shows that the “nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us.”

Sorry: The Justice report doesn’t prove disparate treatment, let alone discrimination.

In fact, it looks more like something ginned up to distract from the embarrassing fact that Justice (in another report released the same day) wound up fully validating the findings of the Ferguson grand jury.

Racism is serious, and those engaging in it should be shamed — but we should have real evidence before accusing others of it. And every one of the Justice report’s main claims of evidence of discrimination falls short.

Starting with the primary numerical claim. The report notes on Page 4: “Ferguson’s law-enforcement practices overwhelmingly impact African-Americans.

“Data collected by the Ferguson Police Department from 2012 to 2014 shows that African-Americans account for 85 percent of vehicle stops, 90 percent of citations, and 93 percent of arrests made by FPD officers, despite comprising only 67 percent of Ferguson’s population.”

Those statistics don’t prove racism, because blacks don’t commit traffic offenses at the same rate as other population groups.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2011 Police-Public Contact Survey indicates that, nationwide, blacks were 31 percent more likely than whites to be pulled over for a traffic stop.

Ferguson is a black-majority town. If its blacks were pulled over at the same rate as blacks nationally, they’d account for 87.5 percent of traffic stops.

In other words, the numbers actually suggest that Ferguson police may be slightly less likely to pull over black drivers than are their national counterparts. They certainly don’t show that Ferguson is a hotbed of racism.

Critics may assert that that “31 percent more likely” figure simply shows that racism is endemic to police forces nationwide.

Hmm: The survey also reveals that men are 42 percent more likely than women to be pulled over for traffic stops. Should we conclude that police are biased against men, or that men drive more recklessly?

In fact, blacks die in car accidents at a rate about twice their share of car owners.

A 2006 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study found that black drivers who were killed in accidents have the highest rate of past convictions for speeding and for other moving violations. This suggests that there are a lot of unsafe black drivers, not racism.

The Justice report on Ferguson continues, “African-Americans are at least 50 percent more likely to have their cases lead to an arrest warrant, and accounted for 92 percent of cases in which an arrest warrant was issued by the Ferguson Municipal Court in 2013.”

Again, this pretends that a mere difference is evidence of discrimination.

But the report’s statistic doesn’t even look at the seriousness of a charge — something that makes a big difference in whether to issue a warrant.

Could it be that blacks are more likely to face particularly serious charges?

Since Justice has gone through the case files, it could easily have answered the questions. Perhaps it didn’t like the answers. (Unfortunately, no national data are available for comparison.)

Another major complaint in the Justice report: “Most strikingly, the court issues municipal arrest warrants not on the basis of public-safety needs, but rather as a routine response to missed court appearances and required fine payments.”

If you think that this is unique to Ferguson, try not paying your next speeding ticket.

As for the anecdotal evidence Justice offers to bring home this complaint, well, here’s an anecdote from Washington, DC — a town with a black mayor and black-majority city council.

Megan Johnson, a black DC woman, recently failed to pay 10 parking tickets within the allotted 30 days. The city doubled her fines from $500 to $1,000, then booted, towed and sold her car — and charged her $700 for towing and impounding it.

DC sold the car at auction for $500 and won’t even credit that amount to what she owes. It’s now attaching her tax refunds.

Justice’s Ferguson anecdotes no more prove racism than Megan Johnson’s experience proves the DC government is racist.

Finally, for “direct evidence of racial bias,” the report describes seven emails from Ferguson police officers from 2008 to 2011 that Justice describes as offensive to blacks, women, Muslims, President Obama and his wife, and possibly people of mixed race.

But this begs some big questions: Did only one or two of the 53 officers send the emails? Did the objectionable emails end in 2011 because those officers no longer worked for the department, were told to stop?

The Justice Department’s report reads as a prosecutor’s brief, not an unbiased attempt to get at the truth, with evidence carefully selected and portrayed in the strongest possible light.

Differences don’t necessarily imply racism, but the Obama Justice Department doesn’t seem to care.

John R. Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former chief economist for the United States Sentencing Commission.

February 22, 2015

Study: Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment

Posted June 6, 2005; 01:14 p.m.

by Lauren Robinson-Brown

Princeton University researchers have found that ignoring race in elite college admissions would result in sharp declines in the numbers of African Americans and Hispanics accepted with little gain for white students.

In a study published in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly, authors Thomas Espenshadeand Chang Chung examined the controversial notion that eliminating affirmative action would lead to the admission of more white students to college and found it to be false. The assertion that qualified white students are being displaced by less qualified minority students was a prime plaintiff argument in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court cases against the University of Michigan (Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger).

"We're trying to put these admission preferences in context so people understand that lots of students, including those with SAT scores above 1500, are getting a boost," said Espenshade, the professor of sociology who co-authored "The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities" with Chung, a senior technical staff member in the Office of Population Research. "The most important conclusion is the negative impact on African American and Hispanic students if affirmative action practices were eliminated."

According to the study, without affirmative action the acceptance rate for African-American candidates likely would fall nearly two-thirds, from 33.7 percent to 12.2 percent, while the acceptance rate for Hispanic applicants likely would be cut in half, from 26.8 percent to 12.9 percent. While these declines are dramatic, the authors note that the long-term impact could be worse.

"If admitting such small numbers of qualified African-American and Hispanic students reduced applications and the yield from minority candidates in subsequent years, the effect of eliminating affirmative action at elite universities on the racial and ethnic composition of enrolled students would be magnified beyond the results presented here," the report says.

The authors also cite other studies and the actual experience of the University of California system where affirmative action has been eliminated: "The impacts are striking. Compared to the fall of 1996, the number of underrepresented minority students admitted to the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School for the fall of 1997 dropped 66 percent from 162 to 55.... African-American applicants were particularly affected as their admission numbers declined by 81 percent from 75 to 14, but acceptances of Hispanics also fell by 50 percent. None of the 14 admitted African-American students chose to enroll. Of the 55 minority students admitted, only seven enrolled in the fall of 1997, a falloff that had the effect of reducing the underrepresented minority share in the first year class to 5 percent in 1997 compared with 26 percent in 1994."

Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 percentage points. Espenshade noted that when one group loses ground, another has to gain -- in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent. Typically, many more Asian students apply to elite schools than other underrepresented minorities. The study also found that although athletes and legacy applicants are predominantly white, their numbers are so small that their admissions do little to displace minority applicants.

The authors based their work on models previously developed in a 2004 study where they looked at more than 124,000 elite university applicants' SAT scores, race, sex, citizenship, athletic ability and legacy in combination with their admission decision. This more recent study honed in on more than 45,000 applicants. Both studies are part of the multidimensional National Study of College Experience, which is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Espenshade is professor of sociology and faculty associate at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. His research and teaching interests include higher education in the United States, the racial dimension of college admissions and campus life, intergroup relations on college campuses, social demography, and contemporary immigration to the United States. Espenshade joined the faculty in 1988 after receiving his doctorate in economics from Princeton in 1972.

February 14, 2015

By Jeffrey Lord | February 14, 2015 | 9:18 AM EST

It is the Voldemort of media facts. The media version of Sherlock Holmes clue of the dog that didn’t bark.

Here’s a question. What is the difference between Brian Williams and Rush Limbaugh? What is the dog that isn’t barking?

Answer? The audience. There is no sudden groundswell of outraged NBC Nightly News viewers rallying to the support of the suspended anchor, angrily demanding he be restored to his job. On the contrary, when Rush Limbaugh ran into trouble in the Sandra Fluke episode and a handful of sponsors left -- under pressure of manufactured outrage from liberal interest groups -- Rush’s audience rallied on the spot. In the end not only did Rush keep his show but the sponsors who left were punished by Rush’s audience. One of those sponsors was so stunned by the negative backfire to their departure that they begged to be taken back as a sponsor - and were refused by Rush himself. Another -- Carbonite, an online back-up company -- saw their stock plummet. The company’s CEO, outed as a supporter of the leftist MoveOn.org and various other leftist groups later acknowledged that the public slap in the face of Limbaugh’s audience had a negative consequence.

Over at Mediaite there is a story posted last night suddenly proclaiming that some Brian fans are flooding Facebook with demands to “#BringBrianBack”. And…gasp!…”there are over 1000 comments, the vast majority of which are demanding to bring Williams back.” Wow! Over a whole thousand comments! And the vast majority” are “demanding” to bring Brian back.

Pathetic. Suffice to say, it takes more than "the vast majority" of over a thousand people to crash a major company's stock and send an advertiser begging to be restored to advertising status on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

In all the dust-up about NBC’s Brian Williams there has been not a peep other than from this "vast majority" of "over a thousand" Facebook fans from the NBC audience demanding that Williams be restored to his anchor position post haste. Say again, not…a…peep. The occasional defender has popped up -- Dan Rather, the fired CBS anchor being one -- but a surge of support from an audience angry at the Williams suspension and possible banishment from the NBC Nightly News? It isn’t there. And notably, speaking of Dan Rather, it wasn’t there for him either.

Why? What is the difference between Rush Limbaugh and Brian Williams that makes one man the subject of a fierce audience loyalty and the other left dangling with not a peep other than this pathetic Facebook offering from his viewers? To answer that question is to discuss the revolution that is taking place in the American media.

Let’s start with Rush Limbaugh’s genre -- talk radio.

Much has been made of the fact that Brian Williams drew a weekly audience varying between 9-10 million viewers, as this story in Deadline Hollywood illustrates. The story, run on December 23rd of last year, says “Williams snagged an average 9.360 million total viewers for the week…”

The fact is that Rush Limbaugh’s weekly audience in 2013 - a year after the Fluke episode, was sailing along with an audience of 20 million a week, as seen here. In other words, Rush’s audience was more than twice the size of the Brian Williams audience. With the audience fiercely loyal to the host, a not so small issue as seen right this minute with the lack of support for Williams so clearly obvious. Likewise Sean Hannity cruises along right behind Rush in audience size. The other day the announcement was made that Mark Levin had just had his contract extended for another five years.

In other words? Recall a few years back when John Avlon over there at the Daily Beast was trumpeting that talk radio was “dying” and in the middle of a “flameout”? The narrative was as bizarre as it was obviously political. And Avlon wasn’t the only one saying it, either.

"Rush Limbaugh is Finished," assured Salon in 2013. Similar drastic predictions were made for Sean Hannity, one story asking "Are Conservatives Getting Tired of Sean Hannity?" The answer to the latter turned out to be no. laughably no. Just as the idea that Rush Limbaugh was finished has turned out to be utterly laughable. But so it went with these kind of nutty predictions. All of them wrong.

The question, then, is what does all of this say about the American media? Not to mention America itself?

When Rush Limbaugh is outdrawing Brian Williams, and the latter’s audience can’t even be bothered to defend Williams when he’s in trouble, there is something going on here. There is no original thought in saying that the mainstream American media monopoly is in the process of imploding. But it is time to say again that all of the talk radio naysayers of a few years ago have been shown to be not just wrong but spectacularly wrong.

The other day, as the Brian Williams business exploded, a friend told me a story of once flying on a Washington-New York shuttle when who should board but - yes indeed - Brian Williams. What caught my friend’s attention was the curiosity that Mr. Williams was wearing sunglasses - and never removed them for the flight. The thought occurred to my friend at the time that the impression radiating forth from Williams was one of self-congratulatory “cool”, an aggressive sense of pomposity. Now, in the flood of stories gushing from NBC is this one in the New York Post in which it is reported that “One longtime NBC employee who has worked with Williams on several occasions had a few dirty words to describe the celebrated anchor, calling him a “real pompous piece of s–t.” ….He’s an a–hole” he fumed.”

This is not the kind of description of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin or Glenn Beck heard from either colleagues or audience fans. Indeed, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes once described Hannity as "probably the nicest guy in the (News Corporation) building.”

The negatives attached to talk radio hosts almost universally come from political adversaries, along with the repeated predictions that this time one of them -- if not the entire talk radio industry itself -- is toast.

Yet the end of talk radio never comes as predicted, in spite of the best efforts of this or that leftist group out there to bring down Rush or somebody else. Which says something about the difference between these talk radio hosts and the liberal elitism which Mr. Williams came to represent. Talk radio has an almost gut-level connection with its audience. Indeed, to listen to the shows it is obvious that callers feel they are talking to a member of their extended family. Callers to Rush’s show regularly praise him as someone they have listened to for years. They voluntarily identify themselves as “Rush babies” or “long time listeners.” The sentiment is equally clear with Hannity and Levin, the latter of whom regularly refers sentimentally to his “beloved audience.”

This audience bond was simply not there with Brian Williams. And when he brought himself down it was quickly all-too-apparent that his audience had not the slightest intention of rallying to his side. This doesn’t mean that at some point, suitably humbled and in search of forgiveness, Williams couldn’t recover and get the all-American second chance. But if so, it isn’t in sight yet from an audience loyalty perspective.

The inescapable fact of the matter here is that the breaking of the liberal media monopoly by Rush and his talk radio colleagues, by Fox News and, no small thing, the Internet has exposed a not-so-dirty little secret. The secret? The audience for liberal media was always tenuous. But the fact of this was never clear because there was nothing but liberal media. The moment it was possible for the audience to escape to other venues, they did. In droves.

Well aside from the peculiarities of Brian Williams that had him effectively and repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, what is really on display here is another marker on the road to oblivion for the liberal media. The NBC Nightly News may have removed Brian Williams’s name from the show’s logo, but the fact of the matter is that the network nightly news that has reigned as king of the media realm since the 1950’s is vanishing. Slowly to be sure, but without doubt unmistakably.

These are dinosaurs. And extinction is on the way.

Meanwhile? Talk radio lives and thrives for a reason. And that reason is called audience loyalty. Rush Limbaugh has it. Talk radio has it. Brian Williams didn’t have it. And the betting here is that as time keeps moving on, it will become all too apparent that this problem isn’t unique to Brian Williams - but rather a fatal flaw for the institution of elitist liberal television nightly news shows as well.

- See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-lord/2015/02/14/brian-williams-rush-limbaugh-and-audience-loyalty#sthash.1VWZeT3M.dpuf

February 11, 2015

May 31, 2014

The Greatest Murder Machine in History

By Mike Konrad

When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler, then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen. However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty.
The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none.

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. -- Will Durant, as quoted on Daniel Pipes site.

Conservative estimates place the number at 80 million dead Indians.

According to some calculations, the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate). -- Koenrad Elst as quoted on Daniel Pipes site

80 Million?! The conquistadors' crimes pale into insignificance at that number. No wonder Hitler admired Islam as a fighting religion. He stood in awe of Islam, whose butchery even he did not surpass.
Over 110 Million Blacks were killed by Islam.

... a minumum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people. -- John Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue

Add just those two numbers alone together, and Islam has surpassed the victims of 20th-century totalitarianism. However, it does not end there. Add the millions who died at the hand of Muslims in the Sudan in our lifetime.
Much of Islamic slavery was sexual in nature, with a preference for women. Those men who were captured were castrated. The mulatto children of the women were often killed, which explains why Islam was not demographically shifted towards the black race, unlike slaves in the West, who bore children to breed a mestizo class. Add in those dead children; and we arrive at well over 200 million.
Remember that in the 7th century, North Africa was almost totally Christian. What happened to them?

By the year 750, a hundred years after the conquest of Jerusalem, at least 50 percent of the world's Christians found themselves under Muslim hegemony… Today there is no indigenous Christianity in the region [of Northwest Africa], no communities of Christians whose history can be traced to antiquity.-- "Christianity Face to Face with Islam," CERC

What happened to those Christian millions? Some converted. The rest? Lost to history.
We know that over 1 million Europeans were enslaved by Barbary Pirates. How many died is anybody's guess.

...for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000 - BBC

In the Middle Ages…

…many slaves were passed through Armenia and were castrated there to fill the Muslim demand for eunuchs. -- Slavery in Early Medieval Europe.

The same practice ran through Islamic Spain. North Europeans captured from raids up to Iceland, or purchased, were butchered in the castratoriums of Iberia. Many died from the operations that ran for centuries.
The number of dead from the Muslim conquest of the Balkans and Southern Italy is unknown, but again the numbers add up, surely into the millions over the centuries. Don't forget the 1.5 million Armenian Christians killed by the Turks during WWI. We do know that over five centuries, vast numbers of Christian boys were kidnapped to become Islamic Janissary mercenaries for the Turks. Add those in, too.
Muslims prized blonde women for their harems; and so enslaved Slavic women were purchased in the bazaars of the Crimean Caliphate. In Muslim Spain, an annual tribute of 100 Visigothic [blonde] women was required from Spain's Cantabrian coast.

For decades, 100 virgins per year were required by the Muslim rulers of Spain from the conquered population. The tribute was only stopped when the Spaniards began fighting back -- Jihad: Islam's 1,300 Year War Against Western Civilisation

Add in the death toll from the Reconquista and the numbers climb higher.
Research has shown that the Dark Ages were not caused by the Goths, who eventually assimilated and Christianized:

…the real destroyers of classical civilization were the Muslims. It was the Arab Invasions... which broke the unity of the Mediterranean world and turned the Middle Sea -- previously one of the world’s most important trading highways -- into a battleground. It was only after the appearance of Islam... that the cities of the West, which depended upon the Mediterranean trade for their survival, began to die. -- Islam Caused the Dark Ages

Add in those unknown millions who died as a consequence.
How many know the horrors of the conquest of Malaysia? The Buddhists of Thailand and Malaysia were slaughtered en masse.

When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not around today to tell their story. – History of Jihad.org

We may never know the numbers of dead.

After Muslims came to power in the early 15th century, animist hill peoples eventually disappeared due to their enslavement and ‘incorporation’ into the Muslim population of Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java via raids, tribute and purchase, especially of children. Java was the largest exporter of slaves around 1500. -- Islam Monitor

In the same manner, Islam arrived in the Philippines. Only the appearance of the Spanish stopped a total collapse, and confined Islam to the southern islands.

The coming of the Spanish saved the Philippines from Islam, except for the Southern tip where the population had been converted to Islam.-- History of Jihad.org

Again, the number of dead is unknown; but add them to the total.
The animist Filipinos were eager to ally with the Spanish against Islam. In fact, much of Southeast Asia welcomed the Spanish and Portuguese as preferable to Islam.

...from the 17th century successive Thai kings allied themselves with the seafaring Western powers – the Portuguese and the Dutch and succeeded in staving off the threat of Islam from the Muslim Malays and their Arab overlords.-- History of Jihad.org

A few galleons and muskets were not enough to conquer Asia. Islam had made the Europeans initially appear as liberators; and to a certain extent they were. Who were the real imperialists?
Even today...

...Malaysian Jihadis are plotting to transform multi-ethnic Malaysia into an Islamic Caliphate, and fomenting trouble in Southern Thailand.-- History of Jihad.org

Add this all up. The African victims. The Indian victims. The European victims. Add in the Armenian genocide. Then add in the lesser known, but no doubt quite large number of victims of Eastern Asia. Add in the jihad committed by Muslims against China, which was invaded in 651 AD. Add in the Crimean Khanate predations on the Slavs, especially their women.
Though the numbers are not clear, what is obvious is that Islam is the greatest murder machine in history bar none, possibly exceeding 250 million dead. Possibly one-third to one-half or more of all those killed by war or slavery in history can be traced to Islam; and this is just a cursory examination.
Now consider the over 125 Million women today who have been genitally mutilated for Islamic honor's sake. In spite of what apologists tell you, the practice is almost totally confined to Islamic areas.

New information from Iraqi Kurdistan raises the possibility that the problem is more prevalent in the Middle East than previously believed and that FGM is far more tied to religion than many Western academics and activists admit. – “Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?” ME Quarterly

Once thought concentrated in Africa, FGM has now been discovered to be common wherever Islam is found.

There are indications that FGM might be a phenomenon of epidemic proportions in the Arab Middle East. Hosken, for instance, notes that traditionally all women in the Persian Gulf region were mutilated. Arab governments refuse to address the problem. -- "Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?" ME Quarterly

Remember that this has gone on for 1400 years; and was imposed on a population that had been formerly Christian or pagan.
FGM is practiced on large scale in Islamic Indonesia; and is increasing.

...far from scaling down, the problem of FGM in Indonesia has escalated sharply. The mass ceremonies in Bandung have grown bigger and more popular every year. -- Guardian

The horrified British author of that Guardian article is still deluded that Islam does not support FGM, when in fact it is now settled that FGM is a core Islamic practice. Islamic women have been brainwashed to support their own abuse.

Abu Sahlieh further cited Muhammad as saying, "Circumcision is a sunna (tradition) for the men and makruma (honorable deed) for the women." -- “Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?” ME Quarterly

What other tyranny does this? Not even the Nazis mutilated their own women!
Unlike the 20th-century totalitarians whose killing fury consumed themselves, reducing their longevity, Islam paces itself. In the end, though slower, Islam has killed and tortured far more than any other creed, religious or secular. Unlike secular tyranny, Islam, by virtue of its polygamy and sexual predations, reproduces itself and increases.
Other tyrannies are furious infections, which burn hot, but are soon overcome. Islam is a slow terminal cancer, which metastasizes, and takes over. It never retreats. Its methods are more insidious, often imperceptible at first, driven by demographics. Like cancer, excision may be the only cure.
So whenever you read about this or that Israeli outrage -- and there may be truth to the complaint -- place the news in context. Look whom the Israelis are fighting against. Islam is like nothing else in history.
Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is not Jewish, Latin, or Arab. He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.