Gore’s Al Jazeera Deal Now a Major Scandal

20130103_al_gore_+_aljazeera_sale_2013_LARGEby CLIFF KINCAID:

While the lawsuit over the sale of Al Gore’s Current TV to Al Jazeera is making headlines, a close reading of the legal complaint provides additional evidence that a congressional investigation into the curious transaction is urgently needed and necessary.

The media executive who claims to have arranged the sale says the idea was to make the Terror TV channel “palatable to U.S. lawmakers,” a formulation that suggests foreign lobbying on Capitol Hill in order to protect the $500 million payoff to Gore and other owners and investors in Current TV.

The suit says that media executive John Terenzio also proposed smoothing things over with “pro-Israel factions, cable operators and, most importantly, the American public.”

The other controversial aspect of the deal, as noted by Fox News contributor Lisa Daftari, is that “Al Jazeera America” has announced plans for bureaus in eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan, and that “Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans where [Jihadist] sleeper cells have been detected.”

Detroit has been called the Arab capital of North America.

Because of the danger of inciting Arabs and Muslims into anti-American violence, Accuracy in Media has called on the House Homeland Security Committee, under the chairmanship of Texas Republican Michael McCaul, to investigate the sale and look at the evidence that the channel is a foreign terrorist entity that can be outlawed on U.S. soil. He has refused to do so.

The Al Gore lawsuit constitutes another reason why Congress has to investigate. If Al Gore had paid Terenzio for his services, as the suit alleges, it is likely that the nature of the deal and the private discussions that went into it would never have been made public. Now, however, all of this is on the public record and more damaging details, if Gore doesn’t settle the lawsuit, will almost certainly come out.

The revelations demonstrate how sensitive the deal was in the first place. Terenzio says one of his objectives was to develop “strategies to overcome Al Jazeera’s negative image and make Al Jazeera acceptable to American viewers.” Many members of the public associate Al Jazeera with the videos of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. Al Jazeera aired those videos, as well as interviews with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, and is today still regarded as the voice of the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.

In short, the plan was for a massive propaganda campaign to play down the channel’s ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and its financing by the pro-Jihadist Arab government of Qatar.
Read more: Family Security Matters 

Must-See Videos from the ‘Investigate Al Jazeera Now’ National Press Conference

imagesCA9KZ10GWalid Shoebat:

Some might remember a letter sent by Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival to the new House Homeland Security Committee chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), demanding an investigation into the sale of CURRENT TV to Al-Jazeera by Al Gore and his partners. Walid was also a signatory to that letter. McCaul failed to respond to the letter prior to the Investigate Al Jazeera Now Press Conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on February 5th.

Here are videos of speakers at the event – Kincaid, Pamela Geller, and Jerry Kenney:

 

 

 

Persecuting Partners: Murdoch’s Saudis Vs. Gore’s Qataris

imagesCAQBUC44by Andrew Bostom:

Yesterday, highlighting a particularly egregious example of preening by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, I reiterated my contention that Fox’s well-paid media personalities behave hypocritically when they ignore the morally cretinous Saudi/Rotana/Al-Risala dealings of their owner Rupert Murdoch, while lashing out at Al Gore’s sale of Current TV to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera English.

Let me preface this post by noting that I support the righteous effort of Cliff Kincaid/ Accuracy in Media demanding House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) convene hearings on the overall danger posed by Al-Jazeera’s broadcasting in America, including specific inquiries about the associations between Al-Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, and the government of Qatar. I find compelling Kincaid’s analogy between Al-Manar and Al-Jazeera, i.e., previously banning Al-Manar in the US because of its ties to the jihad terrorist organization Hezbollah, and now doing likewise with Al-Jazeera because of its support of Al-Qaeda. Indeed, to gauge Al-Jazeera’s continued grotesque supportive propaganda regarding Al-Qaeda, read this puff piece on the “gentle face” of Al-Qaeda’s butchers and thugs who recently overran Mali.

However, Fox’s shading of the civilizational jihad, due to its obeisance to Murdoch’s Saudi business partners (which includes, as but one of a myriad examples this intellectually and morally bankrupt attack on Michelle Bachmann for advocating an investigation of Muslim Brotherhood influence peddling), must also be confronted, particularly by conservatives.

The objective findings (hat tip Nina Shea; methodology here) in this World Watch List report just issued by Open Doors on global religious persecution of Christians, provides a ranked comparison of Murdoch’s Saudi Arabia (an “extreme” offender, and second worst overall to North Korea), and Gore’s Qatar (a “severe” offender, and 20th overall), noting also, that fully 10 of the 11 most egregious persecutors were Muslim nations.

Bottom line, lest we (and the Fox news personalities and loyal viewers) forget, Murdoch’s Saudi Arabia is still measurably worse than Gore’s Qatar. Details from the Open Doors report are reproduced below:

[Saudi Arabia, Rank 2; Extreme]: There is no provision for religious freedom in the constitution of this Islamic kingdom. All citizens must adhere to Islam and conversion to another religion is punishable by death. Public Christian worship is forbidden; worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, deportation and torture. Evangelizing Muslims and distributing non-Muslim materials is illegal. Muslims who convert to Christianity risk honor killings, and foreign Christian workers have been exposed to abuse from employers.

[Qatar, Rank 20; Severe]: The state religion is conservative Islam and nearly all Qatari citizens are Sunni or Shia Muslims. Christian worship is only allowed in designated religious complexes, of which there are only two at the moment, which makes them easier to control and monitor. Many expat laborers are denied access to these complexes as they live too far away or are prevented from attending by employers. A Muslim who converts is considered an apostate and may face the death penalty. Foreign workers who evangelize non-Muslims are frequently deported.

Congress Must hold Hearings into the Al Jazeera Deal

20130103_al_gore_+_aljazeera_sale_2013_LARGE

by CLIFF  KINCAID

If Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) lets  the Al Jazeera-Al Gore deal go through without scrutiny, then every broadcast  entity or communications facility in America is ripe for the plucking by any of  our nation’s enemies and adversaries.

For those who haven’t been paying attention lately, the government of Qatar  has announced a deal through Al Jazeera with former Democratic Vice President Al  Gore for his Current TV cable channel, in order to transform it into an arm of  its Jihadist or “Terror TV” network, once known as a mouthpiece for mass  murderer Osama bin Laden. They are planning to call it “Al Jazeera America,”  when the oil money for the transaction is coming from abroad. This is part and  parcel of the deception, which is designed to make it appear as though Al  Jazeera is as American as apple pie and simply has a foreign-sounding name.

To be sure, the deal was not technically announced by Qatar, a Middle Eastern  dictatorship where freedom of the press is not permitted. Instead, Al Jazeera  made the announcement. But that is part of the deception. Al Jazeera is an arm  of the Qatar regime and is not in any sense of the term an “independent” news  organization. It is government-funded with “advertising” from such entities as  Qatar Airways, the national airline partly owned by the regime. Qatar and Al  Jazeera are one and the same.

The purpose of this transaction is to soften the American people up for more  Middle East revolution, including within the borders of the U.S. Dr. Judea  Pearl, the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, supports an  investigation of the deal and says, “Al Jazeera weaves the ideological  structure and combustible angers from which Jihadi recruits eventually  emerge.”

Qatar postures as a friend of the United   States and hosts a U.S military  base. But Qatar also served as the base for anti-American and anti-Semitic  “cleric” Yusef al-Qaradawi before he returned to Egypt to help consolidate the  Muslim Brotherhood revolution there. Al-Qaradawi is a leading television  personality on Al Jazeera.

You may have missed the news that Qatar just extended another $2.5  billion in economic aid for Egypt, following a gift of $400 million that the  emir of Qatar made to the terrorist group Hamas.

Al Gore and his partners, including Joel Hyatt, got more than that-$500  million, according to reports. Whether or not that is an accurate figure, any  amount is a drop in the bucket to the emir, who is worth billions of dollars and  lives in opulence.

By the way, Muslim Brotherhood leader and president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi,  just told  CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he wants the release of the Blind Sheikh, sentenced  to life in prison for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City. This  first terrorist attack on the World  Trade Center killed six people and injured  over 1,000 others.

Dr. Pearl calls Al Jazeera ”the main propaganda machine” of the pro-terrorist  Muslim Brotherhood. It is no surprise, therefore, that Qatar would underwrite  the Egyptian regime and Hamas, and that the Obama Administration would voice no  public objection to the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera.

However, there is no reason to believe this sale is legal. The circumstances  surrounding the sale clearly require Congressional hearings and this is where  the Republican House of Representatives and its new chairman of Homeland  Security, Rep. Michael McCaul, come in.

If ever there was a time for Congress to take action, this is it. This is not  a time to let the Obama Administration take the lead, since it has already  approved the questionable deal, which fattens the coffers of two prominent  Democrats.

There are many things about this deal that stink and which require an  investigation by McCaul’s committee.

First, there are unresolved complaints to the Federal Communications  Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Al Jazeera’s  operations in the U.S. Jerry Kenney of Kenney Broadcasting has asked that the  DOJ enforce the law by requiring that foreign propaganda pumped into American  homes by Al Jazeera be labeled as such. He says, “Why is it that if I buy a pair  of tennis shoes made in China, it has to be labeled made in China? But foreign  propaganda which is being aired in the U.S. is not being labeled as foreign  propaganda, with its country of origin, in violation of the law? I want to know  what I am getting. If you know who has produced something, you look at it  differently.”

Secondly, it appears that Al Jazeera has evaded the law requiring federal  approval for foreign investments in America that have national security  implications.

Read more: Family Security Matters

If you would like to express your opinion on conducting hearings into this  curious transaction, the Committee on Homeland Security can be reached at  202-226-8417.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing EditorCliff  Kincaid is Editor of Accuracy in Media. He can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.

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Call for Congressional Hearings into Al Jazeera as a Homeland Security Threat

stop al JazeeraBy Pamela Geller:

I am honored to fight alongside Cliff Kincaid in beating back the jihadist media machine that is buying whole dangerous access to the American news consuming public. I am honored to be a primary signatory of this letter to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul,  requesting that the House Homeland Security Committee convene hearings into the national security threat posed by Al Jazeera on American soil.

This is an ongoing battle. I spoke to this grave threat at a press conference with Cliff Kincaid on Al Jazeera back in April 2011. Watch the video here. More here and our AlJazeera conference videos and materials here. We have just begun to fight. Stay tuned.

Download Ltr2Chairman-McCaul_Al-Jazeera

January 9, 2013

The Honorable Michael McCaul Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security U.S. House of Representatives H2-176 Ford House Office Building

Dear Chairman McCaul:

We respectfully request that the House Homeland Security Committee convene hearings into the national security threat posed by Al Jazeera on American soil. The announcement that the Qatar-funded enemy propaganda channel, which has functioned as a voice for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, has taken over an existing U.S.-based cable TV channel, Current TV, must be examined by the Congress.

Dr. Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, has informed us, in regard to this controversy, “I support your call to investigate the impact of this transaction.” His statement reads as follows:

“A decade of watching over its programs has left me no doubt: Al Jazeera is the main propaganda machine of the Muslim Brotherhood. Posing as a benign alternative communication medium, Al Jazeera choreographs a world stage in which the West is a perennial villain, Hamas is the ultimate role model, and entire societies are dehumanized to a lower form of life, stripped of any mark of dignity or empathy. While refraining from explicit incitement to violence, Al Jazeera weaves the ideological structure and combustible angers from which Jihadi recruits eventually emerge.”

Details are sketchy, but it is reported that Current TV was owned by former Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt and that the reported purchase price was $500 million, with $100 million of that going to Mr. Gore personally.

These issues present themselves:

  • What is the nature of the contract between Al-Jazeera and Current TV owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, and the cable and satellite providers implicated in the deal?
  • Why did Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt reportedly bypass the prospect of selling the cable TV property to an American citizen and media personality, Glenn Beck, in preference for a foreign entity owned by an Arab government?
  • What federal rules or laws are in place to guard against foreign acquisition of American media organizations? Should they be strengthened? Should this deal be approved or examined by the federal government?

The House Homeland Security Committee is the appropriate and necessary vehicle for this inquiry because it was specifically established in part to “better protect the American people against a possible terrorist attack.”

There is a clear and present danger in American cable and satellite providers  accepting carriage of Al Jazeera. In a statement made available on February 23, 2011, Dr. Pearl said,“Al Jazeera’s popularity and general acceptance in the West has emboldened its management to take an even harder anti-Western stance. Their glorification of child-killer Samir Kuntar, and their leaking of the so called Al-Jazeera Palestine Papers in January of 2011, aimed to destroy the credibility of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and to end all hopes for [a] negotiated Mideast settlement are two of many steps attesting [to] their aims and tactics.”

In the case of Samir Kuntar, a released terrorist who had smashed the head of a four-year-old girl with his rifle butt in 1979 after killing her father before her eyes, Al Jazeera not only covered but helped sponsor an August 2008 birthday party for him. Kuntar had been released by Israel in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006.

Clearly, Al Jazeera is unlike any other foreign “news’ operation. However, there are some some striking similarities to Al Manar television, a satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon, which has been officially labeled a terrorist entity by the U.S Government and banned from the United States.

 

Does the treatment of Al Manar serve as a template for how to deal with Al Jazeera’s presence on American soil? Obama Administration officials should be asked to explain what differences, if any, they perceive there to be between Al Manar and Al Jazeera.

One admitted difference is that Qatar, which finances Al Jazeera, is a government, not an officially-designated terrorist organization. Still, the regime supports terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and is viewed by some as a state sponsor of terrorism. In the case before us, we believe Congress should examine whether Al Jazeera itself functions as a terrorist entity and not just a diplomatic tool of the Qatar regime.

The relationship between Qatar and Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood also requires attention. We note that Ikhwanweb, the official English website of the Muslim Brotherhood, has referred to Al Jazeera as “the greatest Arab media organization.”

The U.S. State Department designates Hamas as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” and states that it “was formed in late 1987 as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Dr. Judea Pearl has commented in the past — and has reiterated here —that Al Jazeera is the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood. That voice has a real name and face – Yusef Al-Qaradawi, the Al-Jazeera TV personality who has stated, among other things, that Hitler was divine punishment for the misdeeds of the Jews; that the Holocaust was exaggerated; that he desires to end his life in the service of Jihad by visiting Israel and throwing a bomb, becoming a“martyr” in the process; and that the U.S. will collapse if it doesn’t end its“unjust ways.”

The immediate danger that must be addressed is that Al Jazeera’s influence over potential Muslim extremists could inspire home-grown Jihadists to commit terrorist acts against Americans. We already have evidence that the words and images on Al Jazeera have inspired foreign terrorists to kill Americans in places such as Iraq. The captured terrorists have said so on film in a documentary produced by Accuracy in Media.

Read the rest at Atlas Shrugs

Morsi Promises to Ask Obama for ‘Blind Sheik’ Release

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman

IPT: by John Rossomando

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi promised to lobby President Obama to release 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman, aka “The Blind Sheik,” the next time he sees the president.

“When I meet with him I will talk to him about this issue,” Morsi said during a Monday interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

The Egyptian president repeatedly reaffirmed the commitment he made last June to free the cleric, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the bombing and subsequent plans to target New York City landmarks. Abdel Rahman also issued a fatwa justifying the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and was tied to Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.

His release was also demanded by the Salafist protesters who stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11, 2012.

“I want him to be free, but I respect the law and the rule of law in Egypt and the United States. What I am talking about isn’t a violation. I don’t want a violation of the rule of law, but there are also many humane aspects,” Morsi told Blitzer. “There can be things like visitation, assistance, his children, his family assisting him. He is an old sheik and sick and blind. We need to respect that.

“Because he is a man, an old man, and he deserves full care,” Morsi continued. “I wish that there could be a big possibility for the American administration to look into this matter about this sheikh who is very old.”

Morsi’s statement was rebuffed on Capitol Hill by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Tex.

“I urge the Obama administration to stand firm against pleas from Egypt to free Omar Abdel Rahman. Releasing a terrorist who plotted against the United States and has American blood on his hands would be seen as a sign of weakness throughout the Muslim extremist world and will only serve to embolden our enemies who continue to plot against us,” McCaul said Tuesday in a statement.

Spokesmen for the National Security Council and the Justice Department vowed that Abdel Rahman will serve out his full life sentence despite any Egyptian requests.

Congressional report ties Middle East terrorists to Mexican drug cartels

Iran Quds force

By Matthew Boyle

A new congressional report from the House  Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and  Management ties Middle East terror organizations to Mexican drug cartels.

The report, released Thursday, is titled “A Line in the Sand: Countering  Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border.” It found that the “Southwest border has now become the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration  into the United States.” It specifically cites a “growing influence” from  Iranian and Hezbollah terror forces in Latin America.

“The presence of Hezbollah in Latin America is partially explained by the  large Lebanese diaspora in South America,” the report reads. “In general,  Hezbollah enjoys support by many in the Lebanese world community in part because  of the numerous social programs it provides in Lebanon that include schools,  hospitals, utilities and welfare.”

The congressional report, prepared by the subcommittee’s chairman, Texas  Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, argues that the “explanation for Iranian  presence in Latin America begins with its symbiotic relationship with  Hezbollah.”

“United in their dedication to the destruction of Israel, Iran has helped  Hezbollah grow from a small group of untrained guerrillas into what is arguably  the most highly trained, organized and equipped terrorist organization in the  world,” the report reads. “In return, Hezbollah has served as an ideal proxy for  Iranian military force – particularly against Israel – which affords Iran  plausible deniability diplomatically. Hence wherever Hezbollah is entrenched,  Iran will be as well and vice-versa.”

Read more at Daily Caller

Report: FBI Did Not Investigate Fort Hood Shooter Due to Political Correctness Despite Clear Warning Signs

By

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI was too concerned about political correctness and did not launch an investigation into a man who was later charged with killing 13 people in the 2009 attack in Fort Hood, Texas, despite significant warning signs that he was an Islamic extremist bent on killing civilians, according to a lawmaker briefed on a new report about the terrorist attack.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

In emails to a known terrorist, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan expressed his support for suicide bombings and killing civilians, while the terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki, encouraged Hasan to stay in touch, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told The Associated Press Wednesday after he was briefed on the findings of a new review of the attack.

The review was done by former FBI Director William Webster and was more than two years in the making. FBI Director Robert Mueller asked that Webster conduct an independent review, and the bureau is expected to release an unclassified version this week.

Much was already known about the series of oversights and missteps the government made leading to the terror attack at the Fort Hood Army post. Soon after the attack, it was revealed that members of two FBI anti-terrorism task forces saw emails between the Army psychiatrist and al-Awlaki beginning in December 2008. Those task forces reviewed the communications and decided they were in keeping with Hasan’s research at the time, and as a result, no formal investigation of Hasan was opened. Hasan was writing a research paper about the effects of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But McCaul said Webster’s report offers some new details that show the FBI was concerned about investigating an American Muslim in the military, and that is why an investigation was not pursued.

The FBI in San Diego had been investigating al-Awlaki, a former San Diego resident, for his possible connections to the 9/11 hijackers. When agents saw emails between Hasan and al-Awlaki, they asked the FBI‘s Washington office to talk to Hasan’s bosses, according to a government official briefed on the findings who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the Webster report. But the Washington agents thought that interviewing American Muslims who visit extremist websites was a sensitive issue and did not reach out to Hasan’s bosses at the Defense Department, the official said.

“It shows you the length of the political correctness stuff going on,” McCaul said after he was briefed on the findings of the independent review Wednesday.

Read more at The Blaze