Tuesday, October 8th, 2013 Stealing Home: The Mystery of Moe Berg. 7:00pm Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 Members of the Actors Studio will perform a reading of “Stealing Home,” a groundbreaking play about Moe Berg. A truly historic American figure, Berg was a professional baseball player, a scholar […]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-ferguson/hillary-clinton-documentary_b_4014792.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Why I Am Cancelling My Documentary on Hillary Clinton
In late 2012, CNN Films approached me about directing a documentary. We discussed a number of potential subjects, and eventually settled on Hillary Rodham Clinton. The film would be ambitious, controversial, and highly visible. But I felt that it was important, that I was qualified to do it, and that I could be fair. CNN gave me complete control (“final cut”) over the theatrical version, and a generous budget.
And then the fun began. The day after the contract was signed, I received a message from Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton’s press secretary. He already knew about the film, and clearly had a source within CNN. He interrogated me; at first I answered, but eventually I stopped. When I requested an off-the-record, private conversation with Mrs. Clinton, Merrill replied that she was busy writing her book, and not speaking to the media.
Next came Phillipe Reines, Hillary Clinton’s media fixer, who contacted various people at CNN, interrogated them, and expressed concern about alleged conflicts of interest generated because my film was a for-profit endeavor (as nearly all documentaries and news organizations are). When I contacted him, he declined to speak with me. He then repeated his allegations to Politico, which published them.
CNN and I decided to publicly confirm the film project to clear the air. Immediately afterwards, the chairman of the Republican National Committee announced that the Republicans would boycott CNN with regard to the Republican presidential primary debates in 2016. Shortly afterwards, the entire RNC voted to endorse this position. This did not surprise me. What did surprise me was that, quietly and privately, prominent Democrats made it known both to CNN and to me that they weren’t delighted with the film, either.
Next came David Brock, who published an open letter on his highly partisan Democratic website Media Matters, in which he endorsed the Republican National Committee’s position, repeating Reines’ conflict of interest allegations and suggesting that my documentary would revive old, discredited Clinton scandal stories. Coming from Mr. Brock, this was rather amusing. David Brock began life as an ultraconservative “investigative journalist,” quotation marks very much intended, spreading scandal with little regard for truth. He first attracted attention with The Real Anita Hill, his nasty (and factually wrong) hatchet job on the woman who, during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings, said that Thomas had sexually harassed her. Years later, he apologized and switched to the Democrats.
When Brock published his letter about my film, I got in touch with several prominent Democrats who knew Hillary Clinton. I told them that this campaign against the film and against CNN was counterproductive. They conveyed this message to Mrs. Clinton personally, along with my request to speak with her. The answer that came back was, basically, over my dead body.
None of this deterred or even greatly bothered me. I flew to New York and had a two hour meeting with CNN’s President Jeff Zucker and his senior staff. They were great. They asked me how I was holding up — I said fine. They pledged their support, expressed dismay that things were so nasty, and told me to go forth and make my film. I did so.
In June, I attended a dinner for Bill Clinton, which was educational. Clinton spoke passionately about his foundation, about African wildlife, inequality, childhood obesity, and much else with enormous factual command, emotion, and rhetorical power. But he and I also spoke privately. I asked him about the financial crisis. He paused and then became even more soulful, thoughtful, passionate, and articulate. And then he proceeded to tell me the most amazing lies I’ve heard in quite a while.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4000/palestinian-film-festival-canada The Toronto Palestine Film Festival uses the arts to demonize the State of Israel. The event is promoted by the Canadian Arab Federation, which has been condemned by the Canadian government for its support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Palestinian propaganda has been ramped up a notch, using the prominent Toronto Film Festivals, in […]
http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-pam-and-robert-show/?print=1 Recently I attended a symposium featuring the notable conservative writers and anti-Jihadists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Titled “The Dangers of Islamic Extremism and Western Complacency,” the symposium was held at the Toronto Hilton and hosted by the Jewish Defense League (JDL). (Event video available here [1].) Earlier on, the Islamic organization CAIR-CAN, now […]
Why are Christians Silent While So Many are Dying?
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/why-are-christians-silent-while-so-many-are-dying?f=puball
“First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”
There’s a clear connection between Jews being attacked and driven out of Muslim countries during the last century to today’s increased persecution of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa.
Sadly, Christians did little to help victimized Jews, ignoring “the canary in the mine.” Some calmed themselves and assuaged their guilt by tracing the purge to just punishment for Jewish non-acceptance of Jesus as a messiah. However, time and time again, the maxim, “What begins with the Jews never ends with the Jews,” proves true.
When will Christians, who number 2.1 billion, acknowledge and stand up to the evil that confronts them and other non-Muslims worldwide? Where are the voices of Christian leadership as the carnage of their brethren reaches epidemic proportions? Janet Levy ~ Los Angeles
Turn the other cheek?
http://articles.philly.com/2013-09-27/news/42462162_1_pakistani-christians-coptic-christians-muslim-brotherhood#8g4cFetkPbLq17uI.99
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/international-islamophobia-conference-promotes-sharia-agenda Objective observers should be rightfully concerned by the “International Conference on Islamophobia: Law & Media” held by the Turkish government’s Directorate General of Press and Information (DGPI or BYGEM in Turkish) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this past September 12-13 in Istanbul’s Grand Tarabya Hotel. Conference participants substantiated all too many threats […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/360017/print
One of the key questions at the heart of the shutdown debate is: Has the Obamacare train left the station? The president has the signature he’ll show you to insist so. But others beg to differ. Others want better. Among them is Sally C. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute and author of the new Encounter Broadside, The Cure for Obamacare. Pipes talks to National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about her prescription and the future.
KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What’s the best answer to the question of what Obamacare means for the life of America?
SALLY C. PIPES: Obamacare has just celebrated its three-and-a-half-year anniversary. This is the federal government’s largest entitlement program since President Johnson’s Great Society, which he introduced in 1965. That was the year that Medicare and Medicaid were born.
Obamacare puts more control of our health-care system in the hands of the federal government. It is a program that moves this country on a clear path to European socialism.
It is my belief that Obamacare will not lead to universal coverage or bend the cost curve down. In fact, the CBO has recently announced that 33 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2023 and the cost from this year to 2022 will be $1.8 trillion, double the original estimate and the president’s goal of $900 billion over ten years.
The ultimate goal of the president and Senate majority leader Harry Reid is a Canadian-style single-payer “Medicare for All” system. The Senate majority leader made that clear during his PBS interview on August 10.
This is not the type of health-care system that Americans want. It is clear in the polls. They want affordable, accessible, high-quality care, but not the long waiting lists and rationed care that will inevitably result if Obamacare is not repealed and replaced.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/359861/print
In a few days, Obamacare’s October 1 launch date finally will have arrived. Ever since its passage, supporters of the law have made countless attempts to convince the American people of its viability, dismissing predictions of lost jobs, decreased hours, and rising costs, among others.
Yet from major corporations to local mom-and-pop shops, from entire states to tiny school districts, a wide range of companies and institutions have seen Obamacare’s negative impact on their workers, budgets, and production. Here are 100 examples of how Obamacare is falling short of what was promised.
(Note: Some items on this list came via Investor’s Business Daily and the Heritage Foundation.)
Corporations
1. IBM
Earlier this month, the computer giant, once famed for its paternalism, announced it would remove 110,000 of its Medicare-eligible retirees from the company’s health insurance and give them subsidies to purchase coverage through the Obamacare exchanges. Retirees fear that they will not get the level of coverage they are used to, and that the options will be bewildering.
2. Delta Air Lines
In a letter to employees, Delta Air Lines revealed that the Affordable Care Act will cost the company about $100 million next year alone. The airline said that in addition to several other changes, it would have to drop its specially crafted insurance plans for pilots because the “Cadillac tax” on luxurious health plans has made them too expensive.
3. UPS
Fifteen thousand employees’ spouses will no longer be able to use UPS’s health-care plan because they have access to coverage elsewhere. The “costs associated with the Affordable Care Act have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost,” the delivery giant said in a company memo. The move is expected to save the company $60 million next year.
4. Caterpillar Inc.
In the law’s first year, the machinery manufacturer estimated before its passage, Obamacare would add more than $100 million in health-care costs. “We can ill afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors,” a Caterpillar executive wrote lawmakers, saying that the law would not meet the goal of providing good, inexpensive health care for all Americans.
5. SeaWorld
SeaWorld used to let part-time employees work up to 32 hours per week, but the company is dropping the limit to 28 hours to keep them under the 30-hour threshold at which it would be required to provide health insurance under Obamacare. More than 80 percent of the company’s thousands of employees are part-time and/or seasonal.
Medical-Device Tax
6. Stryker Corp.
Stryker Corp., a Michigan medical-device manufacturer, laid off about 1,000 employees earlier this year due to the Affordable Care Act’s 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices. The company estimated that the tax would cost it approximately $100 million next year. “Stryker remains significantly concerned with the upcoming medical device excise tax and its negative impact on jobs and innovation and will continue to work with Congress to try to repeal the tax,” said the company’s CEO.
7. Welch Allyn
The manufacturer announced that it will have to cut approximately 10 percent of its 2,750 employees, 275 in all, because of the medical-device tax. The company also plans to consolidate manufacturing centers, moving some operations from Beaverton, Ore., to its facility in Skaneateles Falls, N.Y.
8. Smith & Nephew
The British company informed nearly 100 employees at its Massachusetts and Tennessee facilities that they would be laid off “in order to absorb [the] cost burden” of the tax on medical devices.
Hospitals, Nonprofits
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3998/german-elections
Because of the “5% hurdle,” Germany’s new coalition will be to the left of the previous coalition, while voters had clearly indicated they wanted German to turn to the right.
The German elections had two important consequences, one predicted, the other one unpredicted. As expected, the number of Islamic members of the Bundestag, the German Parliament, has increased.
The Christian-Democrat CDU of Chancellor Angela Merkel now has its first Muslim parliamentarian. Cemile Giousouf, the 35-year old daughter of a Turkish immigrant, was elected in Hagen, a city in the industrial Ruhr area with a foreign population of 40%.
Germany has 800,000 Turkish voters. The Turks make up the largest ethnic group within Germany’s Muslim population of some 4 million people, Previously, the Turks had five parliamentarians out of 630 Bundestag members; in the 22 September general elections, this number more than doubled to eleven. Ten of them belong to the left or far-left – five are members of the Social-Democrat SPD, three of the Green Party, and two of the Communist Die Linke (Left Party) — and one is with the center-right CDU.
The number of Bundestag members with an immigrant background rose from 21 to 34, with Die Linke having the highest percentage of immigrant politicians in their ranks followed by the Greens.
Ms. Giousouf’s Islamic convictions — her “religious otherness” as she calls it — did not pose problems for a party that claims to be founded on Christian-Democrat principles. Her candidacy was challenged, however, by another female candidate on grounds of seniority. Despite the other candidate having been active in the party for three decades, the CDU leadership preferred to give the prominent position on the party list to Giousouf because of her ethnic background. Ms. Giousouf defended this decision by stating, “If we immigrants are forced to put up campaign posters for the next 30 years, there won’t be any [immigrant] representatives in the Bundestag.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/30/editorial-words-arent-enough/
Muslim persecution of everyone who is not a Muslim that simmered for centuries in the Middle East now has come to a full boil in certain places. Religious thugs looking for justification for their evil cannot be allowed to hide within the pages of the Koran to excuse or justify murder. The West must realize that the outrage of decency won’t be appeased by soft words.
The Sept. 21 terrorist attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, put brutality on open display. Scores of armed jihadists surprised shoppers in the upscale retail complex favored by Westerners, spraying gunfire and throwing grenades. Trapped families were questioned to determine whether they were Muslim; if not, they were tortured, and 72 of them were killed. Sixty are still missing.
The massacre was carried out by al-Shabab, a radical Muslim youth organization that swears allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. The group is rooted in Somalia, and where they can they impose Shariah law; women accused of adultery — accused, not convicted — are stoned to death. The hands of suspected thieves are hacked off.
The day after the Nairobi massacre, the Taliban attacked a 130-year-old Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan. Two suicide bombers detonated bombs amid 400 congregants of All Saints Church as the Sunday service ended, killing 83 and wounding 150 others. It was the deadliest attack on Christians in the faith’s long history in Pakistan. “[Christians] are the enemies of Islam,” a Taliban spokesman told Reuters, “therefore, we target them. We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land.”
