Posted on 07/17/2004 8:03:05 PM PDT by Richard Poe
Edited on 07/20/2004 7:53:41 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"AL GORE IS INSANE [He] desperately needs help," wrote John Podhoretz in the New York Post, following the former Vice Presidents May 26 speech at a MoveOn.org rally.
Lacking credentials in the practice of psychiatry, I have tried to avoid speculating on Mr. Gores mental soundness. Even so, his address at Georgetown University on June 24 cries out for diagnosis. Among other things, Gore said: "The [Bush] administration works closely with a network of rapid responders, a group of digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors and publishers and advertisers, and are quick to accuse them of undermining support for our troops."
Gores rant against "digital brownshirts" must surely rank as one of the most extreme manifestations of "projection" ever to present itself to the scrutiny of medical science. As Gore is well aware or at least as he should be aware, in his more lucid moments it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who pay Internet propagandists to lie, defame, dissemble and otherwise corrupt political discourse in America. In the last two years, money from George Soros has ushered in a veritable Golden Age for Web-based Democrat mischief, much of it perpetrated through such high-profile Web sites as MoveOn.org. But if such a thing as a digital brownshirt movement truly exists, its seeds surely took root in the Clinton White House as early as the summer of 1995. Senator Alfonse DAmatos Whitewater committee was then investigating charges that Hillary Clinton had illegally ordered some of Vincent Fosters papers removed from his office after the Deputy White House Counsels sudden death. There was talk of hauling Hillary before the DAmato committee for questioning. No doubt adding to the First Ladys worries, House Speaker Newt Gingrich told reporters on July 25, 1995, "There is plausible reason to question whether or not [Fosters death] was suicide." According to White House insiders, the threat of further probes into Fosters death prompted Hillary, in July 1995, to order the White House Counsels office to produce a secret report called The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce. Hillarys report charged that a vast rightwing conspiracy financed by Pittsburgh newspaper mogul Richard Mellon Scaife had provoked unwarranted speculation on Fosters death. The Internet provided a dangerously "unregulated" conduit for Scaifes conspiracy theories, charged the report. Circulated privately among Clinton-friendly journalists, Hillarys conspiracy report inspired a rash of hit pieces in the press, demonizing Scaife. The barrage of anti-Scaife propaganda found fertile soil in the mind of Internet pornographer and former Army intelligence specialist Steven R. Kangas. If anyone deserves the title of "digital brownshirt," Kangas surely lurks near the top of the list. As recounted in my book Hillarys Secret War, Kangass Web activism had made him a minor celebrity on the left. The Robert F. Kennedy Democrats honored Kangass "Liberalism Resurgent" home page with their 1997 "Excelsior Award" for Web sites that "communicate the highest progressive ideals." Kangass site railed against Scaife in words eerily reminiscent of Hillarys 1995 conspiracy report. On February 8, 1999, Kangas took action. He arrived in Pittsburgh on a Greyhound bus, with only $14.63 in his pocket. Carrying a Kel-Tek 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, forty-seven rounds of ammunition and a bottle of Jack Daniels, Kangas made a bee-line for Scaifes office, on the 39th floor of a downtown high-rise. Kangas was seen peering into Scaifes outer office through the glass, but he did not enter. Instead, Kangas holed up in a restroom down the hall, got drunk and shot himself in the head. If indeed Kangas intended to assassinate Scaife, he appears to have lost his nerve at the last minute.
The Democrat "digital brownshirt" movement has come a long way since Kangass wildcatting days. Today, the movement is well-funded and tightly disciplined. Its headquarters is the Center for American Progress (CAP), a far-left think tank launched in July 2003. Headed by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta and funded with $10 million from George Soros, CAP serves as the premier platform for Hillary Clintons political activism. One of CAPs missions, according to its charter, is to run "rapid response" media campaigns, for the purpose of debunking and discrediting troublesome press reports. In this respect, CAPs mission echoes that of the so-called "War Room" which Hillary first operated during the 1992 presidential campaign. According to the Washington Post: Critical to the War Rooms success was James Carvilles so-called "rapid-response team" an elite band of spinmeisters who prided themselves on their ability to intercept a Clinton scandal report at midnight and turn it around to Clintons advantage by 7 am the next morning. In view of these facts, Al Gore's use of the term "rapid responder" becomes less mysterious. It has evidently been a fashionable buzz phrase among Clinton spinmeisters for years. However, then as now, it was clearly the Democrats, not the Republicans, who had honed rapid media response to a science. On May 3, CAP launched a new Web site, MediaMatters.org, which specializes in "rapid-response" work. Funded with $2 million in soft money contributions, Media Matters set to work cranking out daily reports that attack with robotic monotony virtually every conservative utterance that finds its way onto the air waves as a "lie" a "smear," a "slander" or a "factual error." Among its pet projects, Media Matters has been pressuring Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to ban Rush Limbaugh from American Forces Radio and Television Service -- thus depriving our troops in Iraq of the single radio program they are allowed to hear that actually supports them and the cause for which they fight. In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention that Media Matters is leaning rather heavily on Bill OReilly to grant its president, David Brock, equal airtime to rebut allegations leveled at George Soros by believe it or not little ol me! All of this would be grounds for amusement if these "digital brownshirts" worked in a vacuum. But they do not. Thanks to George Soros, they enjoy an extra-constitutional power above and beyond their stature. For the first time in living memory, we are heading into an election where political speech will be monitored, curbed and potentially even prosecuted under federal law. Groups such as CAP and its offshoot Media Matters have thus gained the power to play informer, bringing to the authorities attention any political speech they find offensive, and which may prove punishable under the McCain-Feingold Act. In the third and final installment of this series, we will examine how George Soros succeeded, almost singlehandedly, in bringing to an end 228 years of free speech in these United States. Without shedding so much as a drop of American blood, Soros has managed to undo the work of Lexington and Concord. And few Americans even noticed.
============================================= Richard Poe is a New York Times-bestselling author and cyberjournalist. He is a contributing editor for NewsMax Magazine and NewsMax.com, and runs his own blog at RichardPoe.com. Poe's new book is Hillary's Secret War. His previous book, The Seven Myths of Gun Control, is now available in paperback.
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FYI!
Richard's part II on $oreA$$ should be required reading for all conservatives.
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The Soros ThreatThe Capitalist Threat
(1997 article by Soros)SOROS SNACKING ON SIDE DISHES
(Soros the Adulterer)FR Search for Keyword George Soros
Let Me Tell You A Lie.org
Excerpt:The truth be told, do you know what group has accepted politically motivated contributions from the biggest political contributor of them all? Do you know what group gets to accept soft money while it tries to influence our political system? MoveOn.org, thats who. With George Soros contributing at least $2.5 million to MoveOn.org they have accepted over 1000 times what the cap is for a donation in a single contribution. Political propaganda groups like MoveOn.org and Americans Coming Together have accepted a total of at least $15.5 million from Soros making him the biggest political contributor of them all, corporations included. So, it should go without saying that the Democratic Party is the beneficiary of the biggest of the big contributors. But listening to MoveOn.org you would have no idea that this fact is the unarguable truth.
RP, I can never find your book at Borders.
You're welcome! You said the word 'index' and I thought of backhoe.
When I mention/think of Index, Backhoe is the first thought in my old mind.
I love this composite! You've got Soros right down to the 'grasping' hand.
The reply posted below is an example of the rapid response Digital Brownshirt Team working for George $orea$$, or Kerrorists for Kerry. We will probably find out that JimRob and the mods have banned this Brown Shirt Fifth Columnist several times.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1173603/posts?page=6#6
To: G.Mason
I see that this is a site with an intelligent conservative viewpoint. I hope you don't mind debating me, I'm neither Republican or Democrat-I choose from both parties, based on the abilities they bring to the office.
One thing you've said troubles me.
"Changed the tone and restored honor and dignity"?
No. There has been no effort to heal the deep divisions that threaten to tear our country apart.
The Bush administration attacks it's critics with little to no regard for the truth. (Kerry didn't try to "gut our intelligence" when he suggested we use it's surplus. Using the vote against funding for the war would have been more convincing as a vote against giving our troops body armor would have been more convincing had Bush not also done the same thing. He voted against a similiar plan that would have paid for itself through less upper class tax cuts)
More troubling has been the way the war against Iraq was sold to the world.
There was a strong humanitarian case to be made, as well as prosecuting an act of war (the assassination attempt). We had every reason to believe he might be hiding weapons.
There was no need to try to decieve the public, "honorable lies" be damned.
A CIA analysis indicated Saddam was likely to only use WMDs/give WMDs to Al Quada as a response to invasion and was censored, the opposite of what the administration claimed.
Ties between Saddam and 9/11 were hinted at, despite no evidece to support such a conclusion.
It made us look like we had something to hide, and gave Germany and France's leaders good press.
But worst of all, many Islamic moderates lost their credibility, as the fundamentalists were able to claim that it was proof that the Bush administration was leading a "crusade". (remember that to many, a crusade is a synonym for a Jihad.)
As a result of that,(and a poorly planned foreign policy attacked by such far left liberals as Sen Lugar, George Bush sr, and George Will) we lost much of the support we had after 9/11.
Only those who have a vested interest in reelecting the president have counted that as a triumph.
I hope you understand, for the rest of us, that's not good enough.
6 posted on 07/18/2004 8:03:50 AM PDT by Eye of the storm
Check the rapid response time elapsed from when Yoe posted the summary of the Good Record of JW to the when the rapid response Brown Shirt made its reply.
Thank you. :^D
Bullseye !!
There is a current example of a Rapid Response Digital Lunatic Lefty Brownshirt on a thread right now.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1173603/posts?page=6#6
Try the same places I've found Barbara Olson's books about the Clintons when they were new releases.....history, social science. No kidding!
I ordered 'Hillary's Secret War' online. Saves a lot of huffing and puffing at the book store employees.
It'll be more like 51-48. I never heard of Kangas, until I read Poe. Most Americans don't read Poe. And considering the non-stop hoaxes that the media and the DNC have colluded on on behalf of Kerry, a 51-48 showing for Bush will be a perfectly respectable one.
You're welcome!
Actually, you deserve the thanks because your composites convey a big message in a glance!
I sic'd the Kitties on him !!
He won't last long. He made that ONE post and hasn't replied to comments to him yet.Southack is taking him to the woodshed, I think.
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