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If you’re going to make a documentary film about America’s response to the Holocaust, shouldn’t you at least know how many Jewish refugees were admitted to the United States during those years? Surprisingly, filmmaker Ken Burns appears to be unaware of that basic information—or is for some reason seeking to misrepresent the facts. Burns has announced that his forthcoming film will challenge the “myth” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned Europe’s Jews. That remarkable assertion flies in the face of the historical record that numerous scholars have thoroughly documented. Nonetheless, in recent interviews, Burns has claimed that during the Roosevelt...

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has sparked outrage by comparing the relocation of border crossers to idyllic Martha’s Vineyard to the rise of Nazi Germany before the horrors of the Holocaust.

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U.S.—The Trump campaign has been making claims that rival candidate Joe Biden isn’t fit to debate, has been “hiding in his basement,” and may try to skip the debates so as not to embarrass himself. The Biden campaign has denied these charges and said that Biden is looking forward to the debates and a chance to confront Trump. They had some caveats, though. “Because of the coronavirus concern, we will need to take extra precautions,” said Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon. “Biden will need to wear an extra safe face mask that will cover his entire face. And while...

It used to be said a picture what worth a thousand words. That’s not entirely true anymore, not with Photoshop. Now a picture is only worth a few words. Mostly, “Is that real?” This is one of the challenges facing us when we get something sent to us that we can’t verify. It is safer not to use it than to destroy our credibility by using phony evidence. We received such a picture when I wrote my first article exposing Adam Kokesh, the person who plans to lead an armed march on Washington DC on July 4th. Someone pasted a...

Donald Trump has lost little support since the first presidential debate, despite days of damaging news stories about his treatment of women, according to a new poll. Hillary Clinton leads Trump 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in a four-way race, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post national poll. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson trails with 5 percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein is at 2 percent. In the previous ABC/Post poll, taken before the Sept. 26 debate, Clinton led Trump 46 percent to 44 percent. The new poll continues to show some dire numbers for Trump,...

Ayotte-47 Hassan-41

When You Hear the Margin of Error Is Plus or Minus 3 Percent, Think 7 Instead ...

By now, except in the Hillary Clinton propaganda mills, it is pretty well established that Donald Trump is going to get at least 20% of the Black vote and Clinton cannot break 75% with African Americans. This is a full 15 points below the bare minimum she needs to have a chance to win in November. Nevertheless, the crafty Goebbelsesque media presents this and other “horse races” within this election as one requiring Trump to get 51% or be defeated. This same twisting of the truth would produce a headline saying “Trump down in 8 of 9 important states,” which...

On Monday in New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised that Israel will be "eliminated," a variation on his previous threats to the nation's existence. He was in town for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, a gathering that reliably sees leaders issuing pronouncements that, even if not new, at least are given a bigger stage. On Tuesday, the first day of the gathering, President Obama delivered a speech that also struck familiar notes, including the statement that "a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained." He moved no closer to giving a signal of...

At least so far, Gallup keeps giving Rick Santorum good news on the electability issue. In their latest poll, both Santorum and Mitt Romney fall within the margin of error against Barack Obama, and Romney actually bests Obama slightly [see update]: U.S. registered voters are closely divided in their 2012 presidential election preferences between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and between Obama and Rick Santorum. Romney is slightly ahead of Obama, 50% to 46%, while Obama edges Santorum, 49% to 48%, but neither of these differences is statistically significant.Santorum and Romney are the current leaders in the volatile Republican primary...

[excerpting the end of the article; click below for the whole thing] This is, for all intents and purposes, how political pollsters compute the ubiquitous "margin of error," which has everything to do (and only to do) with pure mathematical sampling error. If you look at the formula above and round it just a smidge, you get a simple rule of thumb for margin of error: Margin of Error = 1 / sqrt(n) So if the sample size is 400, the margin of error is 1/20 = 5%; if the sample size is 625 the margin of error is 1/25...

Did anyone hear Shep Smith tear the McCain spokesman a new one for bringing up Bill Ayers on his program this afternoon.

Mosque's plan to broadcast call to prayer from loudspeaker 'will create Muslim ghetto'Last updated at 10:14am on 14th January 2008 Outrage: Proposals for a loudspeaker to call Muslims to prayer in central Oxford have been attacked by local residents Muslim elders at an Oxford mosque have said they intend to push ahead with plans to broadcast a call to prayer from a loudspeaker despite fierce opposition.  Local residents have attacked the idea saying it would disrupt the peace and turn the area into a 'Muslim ghetto'. But the elders said they still intend to seek planning permission to install the...

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BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro – The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party on Friday condemned the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad and urged media in Serbia to refrain from publishing them. The Radicals called the caricatures “offensive” to followers of Islam. The party said the cartoons, first published in Denmark, have led to a “justified revolt by Muslims everywhere who nurture the deepest reverence for Prophet Muhammad, founder of their religion and tradition.” The Radicals criticized the publication of the caricatures as “immoral” and appealed to Serbian media, which have so far reported on the worldwide controversy without publishing the drawings, to refrain from printing...

BELLEVUE, WA – Following almost a year of silence on the gun control issue, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske recently came back into the spotlight, supporting yet another piece of gun legislation, while authorities still haven’t found the chief’s semiautomatic pistol, stolen from his car in 2004. During a press conference in Seattle earlier this week, Kerlikowske observed, “It’s important to me to do whatever I can to keep illegal guns out of our communities.” That remark brought a quick response from Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue. “If the chief really wants to make...

....snip...... Based on Margaret Mitchell's hugely popular novel, producer David O. Selznick's four-hour epic tale of the American South during slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction is the all-time box-office champion. .......snip........ Considering its financial success and critical acclaim, "Gone With the Wind" may be the most famous movie ever made. It's also a lie. ......snip......... Along with D.W. Griffith's technically innovative but ethically reprehensible "The Birth of a Nation" (from 1915), which portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as heroic, "GWTW" presents a picture of the pre-Civil War South in which slavery is a noble institution and slaves are content...

The Thunder Run'Are you kidding, sir?': Fewer than 1,000 soldiers were ordered to capture a city of 5 million Iraqis. Theirs is a story that may become military legend.By David ZucchinoNine hundred and seventy-five men invading a city of 5 million sounded audacious, or worse, to the U.S. troops assigned the mission outside Baghdad last April 6. Ten years earlier, in Mogadishu, outnumbered American soldiers had been trapped and killed by Somali street fighters. Now some U.S. commanders, convinced the odds were far better in Iraq, scrapped the original plan for taking Baghdad with a steady siege and instead ordered...

OFFSTAGE, MOE HOWARD, the head-knocking bully of the Three Stooges comedy team, is a small, quiet man who dreads the day the Stooges may be pitied instead of laughed at. Hilarious violence has always been the Stooges' stock in trade. Howard has punched, slapped, gouged and poked partners Curly (Joe de Rita) and Larry (Larry Fine) and their predecessors since the act began as The Three Lost Soles back in Prohibition days. Moe's fist rattles like a snare drum on Curly's bald forehead and booms like a bass drum as it thumps Larry's midriff. Both Saturday matinee audiences and sophisticated...