Conservative Activists Rebel Against Fox News: Saudi Ownership Is ‘Really Dangerous For America’

Conservative Activists Rebel Against Fox News: Saudi Ownership Is ‘Really Dangerous For America’ - Blog For Arizona

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I've written about this guy before A legitimate "birther" movement for corporations, but now the right-wing is beginning to take notice as well.
From Think Progress Conservative Activists Rebel Against Fox News: Saudi Ownership Is ‘Really Dangerous For America’:

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana.
Last weekend, at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis, Joseph Farah, publisher of the far right WorldNetDaily, blasted Fox News for its relationship with Alwaleed. Farah noted correctly that Alwaleed had boasted in the past about forcing Fox News to change its content relating to its coverage of riots in Paris, and warned that such foreign ownership of American media is “really dangerous.”
[Note: Rupert Murdoch is an Australian who owns a big chunk of American media. Half a dozen of one, six of another, it's all the same to me. There was a time that foreign ownership of American media was prohibited by law. The law was changed by Congress to accommodate Rupert Murdoch.]
ThinkProgress was at the speech and observed attendees of the conference murmuring and shaking their heads in disapproval:

FARAH: There’s a flaw, a real compromise in Fox that you need to understand. And if you care about national security, you especially need to be attentive to it. And that is that Fox News parent company is News Corp has a significant ownership by a Saudi prince that many of you will be familiar with because right after 9/11 this prince very famously offered Rudolph Giuliani a big multi-million dollar check to rebuild and Giuliani told him to stick the check where the sun don’t shine because this guy was basically blaming America for what happened on 9/11. Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.

ThinkProgess spoke to right-wing author Brigitte Gabriel, another speaker at the conference, who said that Alwaleed was recently interviewed by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. Gabriel angrily denounced the interview as a “darling high school reunion”: “All of the sudden, Neil Cavuto is interviewing him like a buddy-buddy because he is the boss.” Indeed, in the “rare” interview Alwaleed gave last month, he reaffirmed his “alliance” with the Murdoch family and told Cavuto why he has a personal stake in influencing American politics:

– On continuing America’s dependence on fossil fuels, Saudia Arabian oil: “Saudi Arabia’s strategic alliance with the United States will continue and as a derivative of that, the link with the oil between oil and dollars is there. The bulk of our GDP, the bulk of budget comes from oil and oil is still a dollar based commodity.” As Media Matters has documented, Fox News is a reliable source of misinformation on clean energy, and has aggressively attacked efforts to move America away from a fossil fuel dependent economy.
– On opposing financial reforms, bank responsibility fee: “In a way I’m conflicted because I’m invested in Citigroup but at the more global picture, I’m a big supporter of the United States. I believe taxing the banks right now is not the right thing at all. It’s like you have a patient coming out of an ICU.” Alwaleed owns a $4.3 billion dollars stake in Citigroup, a massive bank that spent millions lobbying against financial reform last year.

With the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision essentially freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in campaigns, theoretically Alwaleed can pressure the American corporations he owns stock in to spend millions — or even billions — of dollars attacking candidates he opposes. In addition to his powerful Fox News outlet, Alwaleed and other foreign investors have potentially unprecedented power to impact American elections.

Saudi Prince, Now Part Owner of Murdoch's News Corp., Influences Fox News

Saudi Prince, Now Part Owner of Murdoch's News Corp., Influences Fox News | Center for Media and Democracy

Source: ThinkProgress.org, February 10, 2010

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (from YouTube)Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now owns a 7 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, making him the company's largest shareholder outside of Murdoch's own family. Alwaleed is best known for going to Ground Zero after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and personally handing then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani a check for $10 million to help finance relief efforts. Afterwards, Alwaleed released a statement blaming the attacks not on the Saudi airline hijackers, but on U.S. policies in the middle east. As a result, Giuliani returned the prince's donation, gaining him praise from Fox News for doing so. Now that Alwaleed has a controlling ownership in News Corp., he is gaining influence over Fox News. In 2005, just months after Alwaleed acquired his first 5.4 percent stake in News Corp., Fox News covered riots in Paris under a banner saying "Muslim riots." Alwaleed allegedly called Murdoch and had him change the banner to say "Civil riots." Investigative journalist Joseph Trento also reported that a comment he recently made on a Fox Network morning news show, Fox and Friends, about Saudi Arabian money still financing Al Qaeda, was edited out of the show. Trento also reports that Alwaleed "has personally donated huge amounts of money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers." In a rare interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto in January, AlWaleed explained his personal reasons for seeking influence in American politics: the U.S. buys Saudi Arabia's oil, and the bulk of his country's gross domestic product (GDP) comes from oil. Fox News reliably broadcasts misinformation on clean energy, and aggressively fights efforts to move America away from being dependent on a fossil fuels.

The 'Zionist plot' to build a mosque

PRUDEN: The 'Zionist plot' to build a mosque - Washington Times

Moonpie

The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and is owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate owned by the Unification Church which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The Times is sometimes considered to be a socially and politically conservative alternative to the larger and more well-known Washington Post.
 
Times' editorial:
That the mosque will be funded from abroad reinforces the view that the proposed mosque is not an effort to serve a Muslim community in Lower Manhattan and is instead a symbolic effort to claim the area near Ground Zero for Islam. It is pertinent that Mr. Rauf, the mosque mastermind, has refused to admit Muslims had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, and he quipped, "Osama bin Laden was made in the USA." This calls into question his self-identification as a "moderate" Muslim.

The ground zero mosque, which is stirring such a sandstorm in New York City, isn't so popular in certain precincts of the Middle East, either. Some Muslims there think President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York are nuts. Impotent and irresolute, too.
Some of the believers in Arabia say the mosque is a conspiracy hatched by the Jews to set out a clear and permanent connection between Sept. 11 and Islam, a constant reminder of an attack on America led by devout Muslims. Dr. Abd al-Muti Bayumi, a prominent fellow of the Islamic Research Academy of Al Azhar, sometimes regarded as "the Vatican of Sunni Islam," says the construction of a mosque anywhere near ground zero is the child of a "devious mentality" to connect the dots of Sept. 11 and Islam, to stoke memories of barbarism in the name of Islam.
Another Arab notable, Dr. Amna Nazir, a professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, calls "building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention — even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds and insist on good will." These are not the empty sentiments of good will and sensitivity so beloved of the girly men of the West. Rather, they are statements of concern that "Zionist conspiracy" aid in construction of the ground zero mosque will ultimately damage Islam. Dr. Bayumi, for one, preaches suicidal jihad to demonstrate that his heart is in the wrong place: "I say in all honesty that we recruit the people of Islam, and instill in them the spirit of the true jihad, which is death for the sake of Allah, for the sake of our faith."
The skepticism and hostility in Arabia to building the ground zero mosque — and until recently the proposed mosque was bigger news in the Middle East than in Minneapolis or Memphis — contrasts sharply with the enthusiasm of Muslims for the project in America. What do Muslims in Arabia know that Muslims in America don't?
Sounds like a lot. Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of "The Al Qaeda Reader" and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, thinks it's a result of culture and geography: "I believe it has to do with the differing mentalities of Western, or 'indigenous,' Muslims. The [indigenous Muslims], who have had little experience of the West, simply cannot believe that Muslims [in America] would be so foolhardy as to pursue such an obvious affront to their host nation." An indigenous Muslim can't believe that even an infidel nation would tolerate the insult. He knows what a similar insult, such as the construction of a Christian chapel in Saudi Arabia, would invite in an Islamic country. Not knowing very much about the world, he expects a similar result from the infidels.
Muslims in the West, on the other hand, have learned to game the system in the West, particularly in America, where the elites' thirst for moonshine seems unquenchable. Muslim troublemakers have learned to expect apologies and excuses for anything they do so long as they invoke the right liberal weasel words, such as "tolerance" or "pluralism" or "dialogue." They've learned that talk of "building bridges," particularly if the bridges lead to nowhere, are preferred fare in the salons of the elites. Insulting Americans invites only apologies, accompanied by abundant bowing and curtsying. George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington only six days after Sept. 11 to preach that "Islam is peace," that "when we think of Islam, we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world."
Too bad for both George W. and Islam, but that's not what most people have come to think of. You couldn't expect Michael R. Bloomberg to understand any of this, but Barack Obama, the son and stepson of Muslims who received his early education in Islamic schools, must know better. He should be familiar with the Islamic worldview that warm and fuzzy feel-good talk — what we once called "appeasement" — correctly invites contempt from men with strongly held conviction, however evil that conviction might be.
The American elites no longer understand strongly held convictions, good or evil, religious or political. The church and synagogue is only a place for rites and ritual, a place to marry your daughters and bury your dead. But devout Muslims really believe. They never apologize for who they are or what they believe. They have only contempt for the platitudes they have learned to use so effectively in hoodwinking the West — and for presidents who peddle the moonshine.

I Have A Dream

VetVoice:: Glenn Beck--"Restoring Honor" or Exploiting the Children of Dead War Heroes

(Rob Diamond is the chairman of Organizing for America's Vets and Military Families Outreach Council, a Security Fellow at Truman National Security Project, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a Navy Veteran. - promoted by Richard Allen Smith)

This piece was originally posted on March 8th, 2010 at HuffingtonPost.com
I received an email Monday morning that stopped me in my tracks. It contained a link to the seemingly noble organization called the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) (http://www.specialops.org) - a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt, federally registered charity whose own mission statement says:
 

"The Special Operations Warrior Foundation provides full scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the surviving children of special operations personnel who die in operational or training missions and immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families."

As a veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom I thought, "what a meaningful charitable organization to give my support." But sadly, things are not as noble as they look.
Read a little further on the homepage of the SOWF website, under the "Latest News" column, and you will see a link to none other than Glenn Beck. Yes, that Glenn Beck.
SOWF, it turns out, is the designated charitable organization that will benefit from a rally Glenn Beck is hosting on August 28th on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC--it is being called the "Restoring Honor Rally." (http://www.glennbeck.com/828/).
Or at least that is what Glenn Beck and SOWF want you to believe.
What is actually happening--and what is so obviously wrong--is that the rally is not actually raising money for SOWF. SOWF is raising all the money to pay for the rally.
Don't believe me? Just read the plain-as-day, italicized font on the SOWF website:
 

"All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010. All contributions in excess of these costs will then be retained by the SOWF."

That's weird, I thought. I give $100 to SOWF and it goes to Glenn Beck first, college scholarships for children of deceased special operators (maybe) second? Why would Glenn Beck be using a charitable organization, whose mission it is to provide college scholarships to the children of deceased special operators, as the financing arm of his "non-political, non-partisan" rally? Glenn Beck got paid $18 million last year (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-empire-of-glenn-beck-slideshow-2009-4). Surely, these kids need the money more than he does.
Should it not be the other way around? I would think you would donate to the rally and then they would donate the money to SOWF? I am a Navy veteran and not a lawyer, but does that not smell like someone exploiting a charity at the least, or money-laundering at worst?
Let's cut to the chase and stop being naïve. The Special Operations Warrior Foundation is now serving as a financial front man for the right-wing, Fox News demagogue that is Glenn Beck. This so-called "rally" has nothing to do with SOWF's stated (and noble) mission of giving college scholarships to children of deceased servicemembers.
We all know this rally is going to be nothing more than an anti-Obama, anti-government, pro-Tea Party hate-fest with Glenn Beck spewing his vitriol under the banner of "supporting our troops."
Well, as one of those troops, I am calling this for what it is--a deceitful and deceptive attempt on behalf of far-right extremists to profit off of the memory of my fellow servicemen and women killed in action. Nothing is more wrong or disgusting.
Similarly, why is the leadership of the SOWF putting at risk their tax-exempt charitable status by engaging in this activity? Why would they risk the good name and good work they have done in the past in order to support someone like Glenn Beck?
Oh, I see, SOWF's Board of Directors is stacked with right-wing ideologues like Erik Prince, the founder and head of Blackwater (yes, that Blackwater).
Do what you want, but I will keep giving my money to real charities like Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (http://www.iava.org), Achilles International's Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans (http://www.achillesinternational.org/programs/freedom-team/overview) and The Wounded Warrior Project (http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/)-- organizations that actually provide support to Veterans and their families who have earned and need the assistance.
I have no need to give my money to a multi-millionaire, hate-spewing faux patriot who has never served a day in his life in uniform, but would rather take money from those that have.
Shame on you Glenn Beck and SOWF. What a disgrace.

Five Days Until Beck's Restoring Honor Rally

On Saturday, August 28, Fox News conservative pundit Glenn Beck is hosting a rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. called Restoring Honor. Set to take place from 10 am to 1 pm, this apolitical event is billed as a gathering to “honor our heroes, our heritage, and our future” and is expected to “pay tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth, and honor,” according to Beck’s website. Contrary to popular belief, Beck stresses that the event is not a Tea Party rally, nor is it political in nature.

“There will be absolutely no politics involved. This rally will honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.”

To emphasize the apolitical nature of the event, Beck has asked attendees not to bring signs of any variety to the gathering, in that “they may deter from the peaceful message we are bringing to Washington.”

Despite the seemingly benign intents of the Restoring Honor rally, the event has faced fierce opposition from civil rights leaders angered over Beck’s choice to host the rally on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Confused by the anger that the date of the event ha s provoked, Beck responds, “Blacks don’t own the legacy of Martin Luther King just as whites don’t own the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.”

In response, social activists, including Reverend Al Sharpton, are planning marches and demonstrations on the same day in order to coincide with Beck’s event.

Similarly, New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz promises that the New Black Panther Party will meet Beck at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Left’s attempts at creating controversy over what should be a completely uncontroversial event have done little to deter Americans from making plans to attend.

Buses from as far as Washington and California as well as Vermont and New Hampshire have been scheduled to take interested parties to the rally, and many have already been sold out. Likewise, hotels in the Washington, D.C. area are filling up fast.

According to the Conservative Daily News, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly projects that the event will host approximately 15 to 20 thousand people, while Beck is hoping for well over 100,000.

Aware that many Americans are unable to attend the event for financial, work-related, or personal reasons, Beck has asked Americans to participate in any way they can, whether it is through spiritual engagements like fasting and praying, or through social participation such as promoting the event to friends and families, or donating money to the event (as all proceeds will be to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation).

Above all, Beck has emphasized that the event should encourage Americans to restore honor in their own lives.

While Beck has worked hard to keep much of the event secretive to preserve the element of surprise, announced speakers at the event include Beck, Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Dr. Alveda King — niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marcus Luttrell.

Country artist Jo Dee Messina is set to perform at the event as well.

Beck contends that Restoring Honor will be an event “for the textbooks.” Whether such an rally will make its way into the pages of notoriously unpatriotic school textbooks is debatable, but one thing is certain: Americans across the country (including yours truly) are excited at the potential and will be flocking to D.C. on Saturday to be part of something big.

Those interested in the event should visit http://www.glennbeck.com/828/ for further information.

Stop Americanization of Islam

Leaders fear for Netherlands' image as anti-Islam populist turns kingmaker | World news | The Guardian

 

Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom party, is in the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government. Photograph: Ben

The Dutch government has launched a damage-limitation campaign to try to counter what it fears is the disastrous international impact of the Islam-bashing populist Geert Wilders.
Wilders, whose success in June's general election catapulted him into the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government, is to travel to New York to take part in protests on 11 September against the proposed Muslim community centre near Ground Zero.
Maxime Verhagen, the acting foreign minister and Christian Democrats' leader, has voiced fears that Wilders's speech in New York will tarnish Dutch reputations. He has also taken the unusual step of circulating confidential orders to Dutch diplomats around the world on how to answer questions about Wilders's influence in a new government and on the fallout for Muslims in the Netherlands.

With characteristic robustness, Wilders has told Verhagen to mind his own business. He clearly intends to grab attention with a tub-thumping exercise in Islamophobia in New York.
"Good feeling. Important speech. No one will stop me. No mosque at Ground Zero," he tweeted after booking a flight to New York. "Stop Islam, defend freedom" is his rallying cry.
The tensions over 9/11 and New York come as Wilders savours his growing clout at home. His Freedom party is running at 31% in the most recent opinion poll, ahead of all other contenders, and he has spent most of this week at a secret location with Verhagen and Mark Rutte, the liberals' leader, haggling over the terms for a new coalition government.
Wilders, whose party almost tripled its seats, from nine to 24, in the June election, is not joining the new cabinet. Instead, he will prop up a rightwing coalition of liberals and Christian Democrats in return for pledges of a tough new crackdown on immigration and other policy concessions. If the talks succeed, Wilders will be in the enviable position of wielding power while abjuring responsibility.
The negotiations have been going on for a fortnight and are supposed to be concluded next week. But they are said to be going badly.

A coalition backed by Wilders would command the slimmest of majorities – 76 seats in the 150-seat second chamber or lower house. The Trouw newspaper yesterday reported at least one dissident Christian Democrat MP would not support it, making it unviable.
Verhagen is in a difficult position. While negotiating with Wilders, he is also telling his diplomats how to undermine the rightwing maverick. Verhagen faces mounting resistance within his own party to collaborating, even if only tacitly, with Wilders.
Last week German Christian Democrats joined Dutch party dissidents in calling for a boycott of Wilders.
The latest opinion polls show Wilders soaring ahead of Rutte's liberal VVD party. Rutte, who is expected to be the new prime minister, supports an immigration crackdown and other anti-EU and hardline policies demanded by Wilders. But the two rightwingers are split over the main issue – austerity and budget cuts. Rutte is committed to slashing public spending by €18bn to halve the budget deficit from almost 7%. He is demanding health service, education, welfare and social security cuts.
Wilders, who is being prosecuted in Amsterdam on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination, is portraying himself as the protector of Dutch welfare, while calling for a tax on Islamic headscarves, a ban on the Qur'an, closure of Islamic schools, deportation of immigrants and proscribing mosque-building.
Verhagen has told his ambassadors how to cope with foreigners' questions such as "What will that mean for the treatment of Muslims?" if Wilders props up a new government.

Assange "has skew perception of women"

Assange "has skew perception of women" - Stockholm News

Swedish and international media have today published the news that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, first was charged in his absence on suspicion of rape and molestation in Stockholm, something the chief prosecutor later pulled back. Assange has the whole time denied the allegations. Now one of the two women behind the allegations speak out in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

When the 30-year-old woman came into contact with a woman who told that Assange had raped her, the two went to the police.

It was during his current visit to Sweden, among else to hold talks and meet with representatives from the Pirate Party, that Julian Assange met the two women, who has not previously seen either him or each other. He is now suspected of raping one of the women and for molestation of the other.

The 30-year-old woman said that she, for her part claims to be a victim of molestation, but not a rape.

The origins of the police report came last Friday. Another woman approached her and told a similar, but worse history. The second woman is between 20 and 30 years of age.

For the sake of the ongoing police investigation, the 30-year old woman does not want to tell more details yet, but she has left a very detailed statement to the police. Also the other woman has made a detailed statement to the police.

"I immediately believed in what she told me because I had an experience similar to her story," the woman said to Aftonbladet.

The two women then decided to jointly go to the police to leave their statements.

She says that it is not true, as some media have reported, that they would be afraid of Assange and therefore refused to notify the police.

"He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him," said the woman.

In both cases, it is about a situation starting as voluntary sex, that in a later stage overstepped into molestation.

"The other woman wanted to report the rape. I gave my story as a testimony to hers and to support her. We fully stand behind our statements."

l'Assange fugitif tweets in hiding

Sweden drops Assange rape charge

Wikileaks founder Assange has been at odds with the US [Photo: Esther Dyson, via Flickr] Swedish prosecutors have cancelled an arrest warrant issued for Julian Assange, the founder of controversial whistleblower website Wikileaks. The warrant was issued following a sexual assault complaint against him. But on Saturday, as international media outlets were beginning to pick up the story, Eva Finne, Sweden's chief prosecutor, announced that Assange was no longer wanted. "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," the chief prosecutor said, but declined to go into any more details. Assange had denied the allegations,saying via Twitter that the charges were "without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing". The prosecutor's office in Stockholm said an arrest warrant was issued for the 39-year-old Australian national late on Friday for suspicion of rape and molestation. 'Dirty tricks' After Swedish tabloid Expressen,first published reports that the arrest warrant had been issued for Assange, Wikileaks responded on Twittersaying: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one." "No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting." Assange's organisation has caused much controversy recently with the release of 75,000 classified US military documentscontaining information surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US government rejected the release of the documents, saying the website had "blood on its hands" for naming people who had helped its military in opposition to groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and ordered Wikileaks to return the files. I thought I could Wikileaks, meanwhile, has said that it is plans to reveal more of the remaining 15,000 classified documents it holds, possibly this month or next month. Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, in London, said: "The two alleged victims in this are in their twenties. "One is supposed to have happened last weekend in Stockholm and another last Tuesday in Sweden but in a separate town." Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to maintain the advantages it receives from the country's whistle-blowing protection laws. Wikileaks also has many of its servers in Sweden.