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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Deportion of America's German Born Wife

In contrast to my previous posting on the Administration's attitude to illegal immigrants as if it was jaywalking, the following article shows how hard the Immigration Service makes it on citizens who marry a foreign national, in this case, a German.  They are deporting her, yet very few illegal immigrants are deported. Even those law breakers who commit crimes are not sent out of the country. This does not make any sense. Meanwhile, this American citizen is trying to do the right thing and his country sticks a needle in his eye. The contrast between this story and the previous one is embarrasing to me as an American citizen. What about you?

If one was trying to devine the reason for the Administration's contrasting rationale...the answer would be totally political.  American servicemen and Germans are not a large voting bloc but Hispanics are.  So this is entirely a political decision to curry the favor of the mostly illlegal Mexican immigrants.  This stinks. Our country's laws are being broken and there is no retribution because of political considerations. Why are we not hearing " what is in the best interests of the country?"  It is gone, sabatoged on the fire of political expediency.

Isn't it time that our "representatives" represent us and not their self interests? The election of 2012 will be a vital point in time. At this juncture, we will determine the future of the country. If the status quo is continued, we will decline, however, if we can change the direction, there is a chance this great country will survive our elected officials.

What is your opinion.  Below is this sad story:

Veteran says U.S. ‘betrayed’ him by forcing his German wife to leave


But an e-mail arrived on July 30 from Citizen and Immigration Services. In it, Marina, Giesey's wife of more than 10 years, was asked to leave the country within 30 days. Giesey, who is 50, was serving in the Air Force while stationed in Germany when he met Marina. He doesn't know what went wrong.
"I feel betrayed by my own country," he said in an interview with The Lookout.
Making mistakes early in the immigration process can doom a person's chances for a green card. In the Gieseys' case, the mistakes happened during the rush to get home to care for a relative, and were compounded by a belief that the government would make it relatively easy for an American citizen to live in the United States with his wife.
Giesey, a 20-year veteran who served in Saudi Arabia, near the Iraqi border, during the first Gulf War, retired in 2000 while he was stationed in Germany. He had met his wife Marina at a New Year's Eve party two years earlier, and they married in 1999. Marina worked as a nurse in Germany, and Giesey began to work in aircraft maintenance. They had a daughter in 2003, and they planned to stay in Germany for the rest of their lives. "I had pretty much resigned myself to a life there," Giesey says. "I enjoyed it and it was a nice place to live, a beautiful country." (Giesey does not have German citizenship. Because he is married to a citizen, he merely needed to register with the city government to legally reside there. There was no fee.)
But Giesey's brother Stan suffered a serious spinal injury in 2008 while on the job as a firefighter. Giesey quickly looked for aircraft maintenance work in Florida, so that he could help take care of Stan. When he was hired by the company Gulf Stream, he was told to be at work in two weeks.
"Because of what happened with my brother it was kind of a rushed deal," Giesey says. "There was so much to do before I got here. We didn't have time to go to the consulate in Frankfurt and didn't have the money to pay the fees. We figured we could do it [once] she got here."
Marina entered the country on a 90-day tourist visa, which she overstayed while Giesey tried to scrounge up the more than $1,000 in fees required to get her a green card. In 2009, Marina and Michael returned to Germany. Marina stayed a little longer to have some dental work done, and tried to return to the United States by herself in July of that year. She was detained for five hours by customs officials who said she didn't have the legal status to enter the country.
The customs officials seemed sympathetic to Marina's situation, Giesey says, and they gave her what's called a "paroled" status. That was supposed to give the Gieseys time to fill out the forms and pay the fees to get legal residency for Marina. In the meantime, Marina started a small business selling German cookies and became the regional president in Florida of the United States Nordic Walking Association.
But what the officials did not mention is that after a first visa violation, it's very rare for the government to grant a green card. Federal law says that anyone who overstays a visa may not re-enter the country for at least three years.
In April, customs officials in Palm Beach told the Gieseys to fill out a form to prove that Marina's deportation would cause undue hardship to her family. This time, the forms and a green card application cost more than $2,000, but the Gieseys were assured that everything would work out.
In July, Citizen and Immigration Services declined to give Marina hardship status, saying that it is usually granted only if an immediate family member has a severe disability--and that a brother-in-law did not count. No one told the Gieseys that, Michael Giesey says.
A lawyer told Giesey that an appeal would cost at least another $2,600.
Giesey had hoped that the Obama administration's controversial move to dismiss most deportation cases against non-criminal illegal immigrants would help his wife. But in order to benefit from the government's "prosecutorial discretion," a person has to first enter deportation proceedings. Letting his wife enter that process was unthinkable to Giesey.
"I absolutely cannot allow a customs official officer or a sheriff or whoever...to show up at my front door and handcuff my wife and take her away in front of my daughter," he said.
Giesey decided to quit his job, short-sell his house and move the whole family to Germany. No one has offered to buy his house, so he plans to turn the deed over to the bank to pay his mortgage.
"My idea of a family is that you're together," he went on. "I spent 20 years in the military traveling around and I know what that does to families."
Giesey says he is disillusioned with the entire immigration process, which struck him as too complicated and expensive for an ordinary person to navigate. "The system almost requires that you have legal representation for something that should be able to be done by any citizen," he said. "If you don't have a lawyer and can't afford a lawyer," you're doomed.
Crystal Williams, the head of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, agreed. "Unfortunately we have a very complicated and trap-filled immigration situation," she told The Lookout. "There is nobody who is going to tell you what the traps are. People do think, 'I'm married to a U.S. citizen--I'll just come as a visitor and it'll be fine.' That's unfortunately not the case."
The Gieseys flew back to Germany on August 30. "My brother will have to return to try and sell his house, cars, furnishings, and all other belongings to have to start over in Germany," Stan Giesey wrote in a letter to his local newspaper. "This breaks my heart."

Administration No Longer Enforces Immigration Laws

Illegal immigration is no different than jaywalking so says the Administration. So much for the Executive Branch enforcing the laws of the land. They have decided they know better and they can void all laws passed by Congress. Additionally, allowing millions of law breakers to take up residence in the country without any repercussions and to receive social benefits while sending billions back to their former countries is an insult to hard working tax paying Americans.

With every passing day, this Administration proves how out of touch they are with the history of the country and its people. One can only hope that in next years election, a resounding message will be sent and hopefully received by both parties.

Here is this outrageous article:

White House Official Compares Illegal Immigration to Jaywalking

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Cecilia Munoz, the White House director of intergovernmental affairs, compared the federal crime of being in the country illegally to jaywalking.

"If you were running the police department of any urban area in this country, you would spend more resources going after serious criminals than after jaywalkers. DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) is doing the immigration equivalent of the same thing," Munoz told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) conference on Monday.

Munoz was referring to the administration's new policy of "prosecutorial discretion," outlined in a June memo from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which falls under DHS.

Under the new policy, immigration officials will prioritize deportation orders, acting only on those involving people convicted of serious crimes or those who pose a national security or public safety threat.
The memo also directs ICE agents to consider how long an individual has been in the U.S., whether that person has a spouse or children who are U.S. citizens, and whether that person has a serious criminal record. Crimes victims, witnesses to crimes, or people who are charged with minor traffic violations, would avoid deportation under the ICE guidance.
Munoz said the administration is acting within its authority - "but we also all understand that even as we use our administrative authority, make the right enforcement judgments, it is not the permanent solution for anybody, it doesn't solve our immigration problems. In order to do that, we need the Congress of the United States."
Munoz also indicated that the administration's new "discretion" policy is part of a "progression" of "work that's been going on for several years."
"We have 10 million, 11 million undocumented people in this country and it's abundantly clear to anybody who's paying attention that we're not going to deport that entire population," said Munoz.

"It's not humanly possible. It's ridiculously expensive...and so what DHS is doing for the first time is trying to have a strategy around the law-enforcement work that it does, and so while it's enforcing the law vigorously, as [Congressman Luis Gutierrez] points out, it's also making strategic judgments about who is a priority for enforcement and who isn't."
At the same conference, Rep. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) thanked President Obama for by passing Congress when it comes to immigration.

Perry In Trouble?


Today, in The Hill Pundit, Brent Budowsky posts an interesting question regarding Governor Perry. Did he really get $30,000 from the vaccine manufacturer when he claimed only $5,000 in the debate?  If so, is that enough for him to bow out of the race?


At this time, I do not have enough information, but would like to know what others think. Is this a deal killer or not?

Let me know what your opinion is.


Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann should call on Rick Perry to drop out

By Brent Budowsky 09/14/11 10:16 AM ET
Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann should consider calling on Rick Perry to drop out of the campaign because in the last debate, he falsely claimed that he had raised only $5,000 from the company involved with his ill-fated vaccination program. Paul and Bachmann have championed the conservative use of taxpayer dollars. No issue more powerfully makes their point than Rick Perry raising huge campaign money from a firm that would make a fortune from his program, and then bearing false witness about it during a nationally televised debate.

Paul and Bachmann should pounce on the fact that in Perry-gate, Rick Perry asked during the debate whether he can be bought for only $5,000 when it appears Perry had received almost $30,000 from the company for his gubernatorial campaigns. Trust me, no politician forgets who donated $30,000.

It now appears that the company and its subsidiaries had donated almost $400,000 to the Republican Governors Association since 2006, when Perry first became active in the association, according to The Washington Post. It is inconceivable that Perry was not involved in soliciting some of that money, a subject journalists are investigating as you read these words.

This is the golden moment for Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann.

Was Perry telling an outright lie when he said he had only received $5,000, which should be disqualifying for the presidency, or was he the victim of a staggering memory lapse, which should also be disqualifying to be president in a dangerous world?

Rick Perry is the mother of all pay-for-play politicians. I expect Paul and Bachmann to call his bluff about this, with devastating effect. Conservatives do not want, and Americans will not accept, a presidential candidate who either lies on national television under pressure or forgets things that a politician so consumed with raising special-interest money should have remembered.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

A Social Security Answer From Michigan

Michigan has been the source of many inventions especially over the 20th century, however, today it has produced a Presidential candidate that no one except those who live in the state. Thaddeus McCotter is a special man with a great sense of humor, an ability to play the guitar and a very good congressman.  I encourage everyone to read his proposal and spread the word. This is a very good proposal.

 

Presidential Candidate McCotter Unveils Social Security Plan

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Republican presidential candidate Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) unveiled a plan that he said would reform Social Security without either privatizing the system or raising taxes.
“I believe [the bill] will help save Social Security for future generations, and in doing so will not rely upon privatization. It will not rely upon raising the benefit age. It will not rely upon raising the payroll tax, and it will not rely on cutting benefits,” McCotter said at a Capitol Hill press conference on Monday.
The plan would establish voluntary retirement accounts for workers under age 50 beginning in 2012. That account would be funded with spending cuts mandated in the legislation – called the Saving Social Security Act.
The funds from those cuts would then fund the government’s contribution into the personal accounts each year, meaning Congress could not use future spending cuts to finance current contributions into the accounts. Under the plan, workers could send the equivalent of half their payroll tax contributions into their personal accounts.
If workers choose retirement accounts, their regular Social Security benefits will be reduced by as much as 50 percent. However, the accounts are guaranteed to pay out at least as much as workers would have received had they never participated and stayed with their regular Social Security benefit.
The accounts can be invested in a set of investment funds – similar to the federal Thrift Savings Plan – that have been approved by the Social Security Administration. Workers can elect to change how their accounts are invested every year.
Those funds are divided into two tiers, the first of which can be either 90, 70, or 50 percent stocks and 10, 30, or 50 percent bonds respectively. The second tier – which can only be accessed after a worker puts at least $25,000 into his personal account, consists of different portfolios ranging from a 95-to-5 percent stock-to-bonds ratio to a portfolio with between 45 and 55 percent stocks and between 45 and 55 percent bonds.
The plan, which has been scored by the chief actuary of Social Security, is projected to eventually eliminate Social Security’s projected deficits, as more people move into the personal accounts and their normal benefits are reduced. In other words, the legislation is projected to eventually eliminate all of Social Security’s unfunded liabilities.
The plan also apparently solves Social Security’s medium-term financing issues by allowing the program to borrow from the federal government once the program becomes insolvent in 2038. Those loans must be repaid, however, once payroll tax income again exceeds benefit levels.
The chief actuary of Social Security predicts that the McCotter plan will allow Social Security to repay its debts to the Treasury over time, as more people move to the individual accounts, allowing Social Security to use excess payroll tax income to repay its Treasury debts.
This happens because the McCotter plan does not affect payroll tax revenue, which would still be used to finance normal Social Security benefits. As more workers move to the individual accounts, Social Security will need to pay less in normal benefits and can then use payroll tax revenue to repay its debt to the Treasury.
All of the chief actuary’s projections are based on his assumption that eventually 100 percent of workers will choose the personal accounts, due to the fact that under the McCotter plan workers cannot suffer financially if they choose the personal account option.
“He concluded that the personal accounts are such a good deal that 100 percent of workers will choose the personal accounts. This is the chief actuary of Social Security,” Peter Ferrara, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, said at McCotter’s press conference on Monday.
The actuary’s estimate does in fact assume 100-percent participation in the program, a McCotter spokesman told CNSNews.com, reflecting the assumption that workers will move into the personal account system because it poses no risk to them.

Arab Spring Becomes Middle East Winter


For those of you who worship at the alter of the Arab Spring, read the following article and see what is happening in Egypt. The banning of bikinis and covering the Pharaoh's faces will only the the FIRST step.  In the end, there will be no moderate governments in Egypt and that trend will be the same in all the countries of  the Middle East.  They all will be extreme anti-US and anti-Israel.

 It should have been clear to the State Department and the Obama Administration because it  is obvious to anyone who understands human nature, Islam and extreme Muslims, that the so called "awakening of the Middle East" was one that will never happen.  The  moderates will be run over by the crazies.  It always happens that way. Moderates don't believe as strongly in their views as the wackos. Additionally, most moderates just want to live their lives and do not have strong feelings one way or the other  while those on the far end of the spectrum cannot see a world other than the one they envision.


In Nazi Germany, the Party was only a small portion of the public and most of the Army were not Nazis. However, the control was complete. It will be no different in the Middle East and we can look to Iran as the example of the way it will go.

The Shah controlled Iran, had his secret police and his prisons, but people prospered. Freedom abounded.  Women wore western garb, drove, went to school and university.  The economy was booming. Once he was kicked out, all of the progress stopped and Iran retreated to the 12th century.  Egypt and the rest of the Arab Spring countries will be no different.

Why did not the Administration see this coming? The answer is simple.  It is either incompetency or they want it to happen. I would bet on the latter. What is your opinion?

Here is the article:

Goodbye Egypt, Hello Iran

Stephen Brown - Daily Mailer/FrontPage,  September 12th, 2011

While the elections meant to turn Egypt into a democracy are yet to be held, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is already turning the country towards an Iranian-like theocracy. The MB announced recently that it wants government officials to adopt stricter regulations, mainly targeting tourists, regarding bikinis and alcohol consumption in public. In a sharia law-ruled state, which the MB hopes to introduce in Egypt, alcohol and certain women’s clothing deemed too revealing would be banned outright. The MB’s proposed alcohol and bikini restrictions probably represent the first step in making this ban a reality.

“Beach tourism must take the values and norms of our society into account,” Muhammad Saad Al-Katany, secretary-general of the Freedom and Justice Party, told Egyptian tourism officials in late August. “We must place regulations on tourists wishing to visit Egypt, which we will announce in advance.”

The Freedom and Justice Party is the political wing of the MB. It will contest elections, scheduled for this November, against 17 other political parties and stands a good chance of becoming the strongest faction in Egypt’s new parliament. But many Egyptians fear that a triumphant Freedom and Justice Party will radicalise Egyptian society, turning it into a strict, religious theocracy like Iran’s.

“This is how things began in Iran,” said Hani Henry, a psychology professor at Cairo’s American University. “The moderate youth wanted to implement changes, but the mullahs hijacked the revolution. The same thing is happening now here in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

Al-Katany says his party will investigate the alcohol and bikini issue and will amend legislation accordingly after the elections. The Freedom and Justice youth director, Ali Khafagy, said the answer to this issue his party finds so offensive may lie in having tourists wear modest swimwear and separate beaches for men and women.

“Bathing suits and mixing on the beaches go against our traditions,” said Khafagy. “It’s not just a matter of religion. When I go to the beach, I don’t want to see nudity.”

But a hardcore Egyptian Salafist group, called Dawa, really stirred fears in Egypt’s tourist industry when one of its representatives, Abd Al-Minim A-Shahhat, told a London-based Arab newspaper that the tourist-attracting treasures of Egyptian antiquity, like the sphinx, pyramids and pharaonic statues should be covered up. Comparing them to idols in Mecca in pre-Islamic times, he called them un-Islamic.

“The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture,” A-Shahhat told the paper, adding the statues’ faces “should be covered with wax, since they are religiously forbidden.”

The idea that Egypt’s world-famous archaeological riches could be in danger is not so far-fetched. In Afghanistan, the sixth-century Bamiyan Buddhas, a United Nations World Heritage site, were victims of similar fanatical Islamist thinking in 2001. The Taliban, declaring the Buddhas also “un-Islamic,” destroyed the centuries-old architectural gems with explosives. Defacing ancient statues of Egypt’s pharaohs with wax is not many steps away from a repetition of the Bamiyan Buddhas’ fate.

The MB’s plan to restrict alcohol consumption and bikini-wearing tourists comes at a very inopportune time. The Egyptian tourism industry, one of the country’s main foreign currency earners, was hard hit by the Arab Spring. Earning about $13 billion annually prior to last January, the number of tourists visiting Egypt declined so much due to the political unrest since late January that tourism is expected to take in only $10 billion in revenue over the next year, starting last July. The industry has been losing $862 million a month in addition to the $1.16 million it lost in the month following the uprising last January 28.

Luxor in 1997, in which about 60 Western tourists were murdered by six terrorists. But this strategy backfired, as it deprived ordinary Egyptians dependent on the tourism trade of their livelihood when the tourists stopped coming. These people then turned against the radical Islamists.

As reported in a German newspaper, an Egyptian statistics office stated in July that tourist businesses were operating at only 30 percent of their normal level. At one popular tourist resort on the Red Sea, for example, all the hotels last week were closed except two. But encouragingly, the statistics office said reservations for fall and winter indicate a doubling of business for the industry. However, more violence and unrest after the November elections could see this fragile recovery disappear and new investments in the Egyptian tourism industry stalled.

Considering the importance of tourism to the Egyptian economy, there are those who believe the MB’s attempt to “Islamise” the industry will fail. One resort hotel owner told the same German newspaper that MB members are “intelligent, capitalistic people” who cannot dispense with tourism if they want to obtain and hold power. Millions of people also would take to the streets again, like last January, if their source of livelihood was endangered.

But this assessment does not take the power of ideology into account, and the willingness of ideologues to ruin countries and economies to realise their dogmatic beliefs. Iran is a good example. Even better examples are communist states, both current and former, that starved millions of their own people to death to set up their secular utopias. Rational, pragmatic thinking, as expressed by the hotel owner, plays no role among true believers, such as exist among the MB.

And neither does any feeling of humanitarianism. Like in Iran and in communist countries, it will be the ordinary people in Egypt who will go hungry and not the unfeeling religious good-thinkers and their families. The fact the proposed restrictions on tourism will affect the foreign currency supply that is used to buy wheat on world markets to feed Egypt’s poor is a strong indication of this lack of concern. The wheat price has doubled in the last year and Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world, is already facing a large hunger problem without Islamist interference in one of its major foreign revenue generators.

One observer writes that “Islamists have never been enamoured of foreign tourism.” So it is not surprising that this area is one of the first, in which the MB publicly showed its true Islamist colors after last January’s revolution. Confrontation, even war, with Israel and the persecution and possible expulsion from Egypt of millions of Christians and moderate Muslims will also most likely follow. As for Egypt’s struggling tourism industry, if the MB does attain political power in November, which appears most likely, it can at least help out by opening burqa-renting businesses on resort beaches.
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Monday, September 12, 2011

Threatening Language Is OK If It Is From The Left

We have heard from the public that they wanted a more civil discussion between the members of all political parties.  The President agreed. Yet, when Jimmy Hoffa talks about "taking them out", not a peep is heard from the lame stream media or the President. Why?

It is my belief that the Left and the President  agree with the Teamster leader's words and they do not find them out of line or lacking in civility. In other words, their belief is the truth spoken clearly is civil.  Now, most of us would not agree with that assessment.

Words spoken by Conservatives, Liberals, Progressives, Satanists, or Independents which are hateful or which easily could be misinterpreted are wrong.  No one regardless of political affiliation should speak this way.

What would be the reaction by the White House if a tea party member or Republican was assisinated and the assailant says "Hoffa told me to do it?"

I condemn the words of Jimmy Hoffa and demand that he apologize to those who his comments were aimed.  I also demand that President Obama publicly ask that Hoffa retract his comments and resign from the leadership of the Teamsters.

The chance of either things occuring is probably less than zero!  Why ask?  Because it is the right thing to do and I would demand the same of a  Republican who did the same.



When “Incendiary” Rhetoric Doesn’t Matter

September 7, 2011 by Bob Livingston 
When “Incendiary” Rhetoric Doesn’t Matter
The Teamsters union’s lead thug Jimmy Hoffa had some profane and incendiary rhetoric in store for a crowd at a campaign event for President Barack Obama in Detroit on Monday.
"We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war," Jimmy Hoffa said to a heavily union crowd, according to an article on ABCNews.com.
"President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong," Hoffa added.
In light of Obama’s call last January for “civility” in public discourse, and his recent calls for a bipartisan coming-together to tackle the economy, even The Telegraph of London is wondering whether Obama is ready to demonstrate “moral courage” and repudiate Hoffa and Vice President Joe Biden, who told an AFL-CIO rally they were keeping “barbarians from the gates.”
The White House has thus far chosen to answer questions about Hoffa’s choice of words with stony silence, and Democrat National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz has taken every opportunity to avoid the question altogether. But if a Tea Party member, or a Republican, had uttered such a thing, the progressives and media would have gone apoplectic.
Once again, the hypocrisy of the mainstream media and the left is on full display.

Kincaid: NBC’s Mitchell Should Resign Over Telling Gaddafi’s Lies

By Cliff Kincaid 
After years of spreading the lie that Gaddafi’s “adopted daughter” had died in the 1986 American bombing raid on Libya, many in the media are finally admitting it was all a hoax. Will Andrea Mitchell of NBC News now apologize and resign for passing off terrorist disinformation as “news?”
As we noted in a column earlier this year, Mitchell went on the NBC Nightly News to say that Libya was “accused of bombing a Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. soldiers” and that “Ronald Reagan retaliated, ordering an air strike against Gaddafi’s tent, accidentally killing his young daughter. Gaddafi escaped unharmed.” Mitchell even showed Gaddafi visiting a hospital. It was pro-Gaddafi and anti-Reagan propaganda.
The facts, which we have consistently provided, are that there were no public media reports of Gaddafi having a daughter at the time of the raid, and so it wasn’t possible that she was killed. Now it appears that Gaddafi did have a daughter with the same name, Hana or Hanna, who may have been born around the same time as the raid, and is said to be very much alive.
Whatever the ultimate truth about this girl, who may have studied to be a doctor in Libya, the dead “adopted daughter” story was a pure lie, as we have maintained for years.
The revelations are a big black eye for Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and host of an all political hour from 1 to 2 p.m. EST on the MSNBC cable channel. Her bio says, “Mitchell currently covers foreign policy, intelligence and national security issues, including the diplomacy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for all NBC News properties.”
In addition to parroting Gaddafi propaganda and disinformation, Mitchell is known for her “extensive and varied reports [which] include a series of exclusive interviews over the years with Cuban President Fidel Castro. Her unprecedented access resulted in a one-hour documentary on Cuba in December 2003.” (In fact, Humberto Fontova’s book, Fidel: Hollywood ‘s Favorite Tyrant, portrays Mitchell as a Castro shill, noting that she said about the dictator, “Castro is old-fashioned, courtly—even paternal…a thoroughly fascinating figure!”)
We noted that Gaddafi had “adopted” the girl after the strike in order to generate sympathy for himself. The phrase, “adopted daughter,” is the usual formulation that we found in reports about the raid. Mitchell omitted the “adopted” part in her story, which means she further embellished the phony story.
This should go down in journalism history as a case study of how easy it is to fool the American media. In fact, it was too easy. In the case of NBC News, however, this was not a poorly paid stringer who was duped. Rather, it was one of their top correspondents and the host of an MSNBC talk show.
The facts are important. As we noted in a 2004 column, “Back in 1986, before the bombing of Libya, Time magazine had carried a photograph of Gadhafi and ‘three of their sons’ but no daughter. After the raid, Time said that an 18-month-old girl, ‘reportedly’ his adopted daughter, had been killed. The New York Times reported that she was 15 months old. The Washington Post said she was a year old.”
But these different ages and reports of sons but no daughter didn’t cause the major media to review the facts in the case and question the information.
In a profile of Gaddafi, Al-Jazeera reported that “Libya’s alleged involvement in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub in which two American soldiers were killed prompted US air attacks on Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 35 Libyans, including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter. Ronald Reagan, the then US president, called him a ‘mad dog.’”
This serves as an explanation by an Arab propaganda channel of why the story was so important to Gaddafi. The lie about the daughter was designed, in part, to generate sympathy for Gaddafi and hatred toward Reagan, never a favorite of the U.S. news media. Gaddafi and his henchmen, who had learned the techniques of disinformation and propaganda from their Soviet patrons, knew that the ploy would work with suckers in the U.S. and foreign media.
Little did they realize it would still be working 25 years later on NBC News.
It would seem hard to generate sympathy for a global terrorist like Gaddafi, but the major media led by Andrea Mitchell were determined to try. Mitchell should resign in disgrace because of her service for the dictator.
---
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.