Smears from 'Right Wing Watch'

People for the American Way's "Right Wing Watch" quotes me at length here and claims that writers like me and Bruce Thornton at FrontPage Mag are complaining that "the real victims" of the Norway terrorist Anders Behring Breivik are "anti-Muslim bloggers."

First, nowhere did I or Bruce suggest that the "real" victims are anyone but the people murdered by Breivik (nor would any responsible writer make such a claim). That is a complete lie on the part of PFAW and a typical smear from the Left, which actually helps prove the point of my article - that the Left will take advantage of the terrorist attacks to go after anti-jihadist writers.

Second, I'm not an "anti-Muslim" blogger - I'm anti-jihad.

Mark on "5 Alive" TV in England

The RevelationTV show "5 Alive" in England is interviewing me by phone this Thursday morning between 12-1 p.m. EST about the Norway terrorist. Check it out...

Lies of 'People for the American Way' Exposed

Just in time for the media’s shameful dogpile on anti-jihadist writers like Robert Spencer for supposedly inspiring Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik’s rampage last week, People for the American Way (PFAW) just released its fanciful “Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism.” Predictably, it’s a hateful exercise in distortions and omissions that mischaracterize critics of jihad as conspiracy-theory bigots aiming to deny the rights of all Muslim-American citizens.

The PFAW, a leftist activist group and “watchdog” of what it deems to be the fearsome and shadowy Religious Right in America, was created in 1981 by former TV producer Norman Lear to combat Christian conservatives, promote progressive policies, and elect progressive candidates. It features such fair-minded intellectual powerhouses on its board of directors as actor-and-politician-wannabe Alec Baldwin and Seth MacFarlane, whose animated TV series Family Guy routinely and viciously ridicules Christians and conservatives. Currently in the crosshairs are those who speak out about the dangers of Islamic radicalization and the stealth jihad in this country.

Mark on Clash Radio and REELtalk Radio

Once again I'll be a guest on the fast-and-furious Clash Radio this Tuesday the 26th at 11:30 a.m. EST, followed by an hour with the fabulous hostess Audrey Russo on REELtalk Radio that same day, at 6 p.m. EST, discussing Hollywood, politics, terrorism, and whatever else we can squeeze in. Check it out...

The Norway Terrorist

A year or two ago I was at a dinner party where a gentleman and his wife confronted me about my writing on Islamic terrorism. “Why is it,” he asked irritably, “that terrorism is always called ‘Islamic’? What about ‘Christian’ terrorists?”

“Well, name a Christian terrorist,” I replied. I wasn’t being combative; I was genuinely curious to know whom they considered to be someone committing politically-driven murder and mayhem in the name of Jesus. The sentence was barely out of my mouth before the wife shot back, “Timothy McVeigh.”

McVeigh’s bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City took place sixteen years ago. Unlike Muslim fundamentalists who theologically justify their acts of terrorism, McVeigh can not rightly be characterized as a “Christian terrorist,” because he was, by his own admission, not a committed Christian, and he carried out the attack not because God or the Bible commanded him to, but because he hated the U.S. government. And yet after all these years his name remains virtually the sole flimsy example that people have at the ready to challenge what they consider to be the stereotype of Islamic terrorism.

Review: Let’s Hear It for ‘Captain America’

A year ago Big Hollywood's John Nolte expressed his “predictable heartbreak,” and I did likewise, over disappointing interview comments by Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston. They seemed desperately designed to reassure his patriotism-hating peers in Hollywood that his superhero “wants to serve his country, but he’s not this sort of jingoistic American flag-waver. He’s just a good person.”

As recently as last week, the film’s star Chris Evans chimed in with more apologies about his intrinsically patriotic character. “He might wear the red, white and blue, but I don’t think this is all about America. It is what America stands for. It could be called ‘Captain Good.’” You read that right. Captain Good.

The Los Angeles Times echoed the hand-wringing that a film with “America” in the title and a protagonist swathed in red, white, and blue might not be groveling enough to suit their leftist self-loathing:

Of course, setting ‘Captain America’ in the storied past [WWII] helps avoid some of the more charged political questions that accompany releasing a patriotically themed production around the world at a time when the U.S. is perceived in certain places as somewhat less than heroic.

As I settled in my seat last Tuesday at the world premiere of Captain America (next to my esteemed Big Hollywood colleague Alex Marlow, who posted his own review yesterday), my expectation – based on all the pre-emptive apologies from the filmmakers and critics – was that I was about to witness Hollywood’s ruination of the most iconic of American comic book heroes.

Jane Fonda: “I Have Never Done Anything to Hurt My Country”

Last Saturday, actress-turned-fitness guru Jane Fonda was to appear on the shopping TV network QVC to peddle her new lifestyle book Prime Time, until the channel suddenly canceled her appearance. In response, Fonda wrote an angry opinion piece for the showbiz website “The Wrap,” explaining that “The network said they got a lot of calls yesterday criticizing me for my opposition to the Vietnam War and threatening to boycott the show.” (QVC issued a statement that answered Fonda’s comments only by noting that such scheduling changes happen often and unexpectedly on the network).

Fonda was “deeply disappointed that QVC caved to this kind of insane pressure by some well funded and organized political extremist groups.” Perhaps the actress in Fonda can’t resist the melodramatic wording, but a threatened boycott on the part of some QVC viewers does not constitute “insane pressure.” Threats of murder and mayhem from Islamists against Comedy Central’s South Park creators, yes; a boycott against a prominent actress always able to command a megaphone, no. Surely such a successful anti-war activist as Ms. Fonda was in one of her previous lives understands that a boycott is a perfectly fair and reasonable form of protest. It’s curious that she is so irked by one, since she boasts that “threats of boycotts are nothing new for me and have never prevented me from having best-selling books and exercise DVDs, films, and a Broadway play.” If boycotts have no effect on her success, then why the outrage? Perhaps it has less to do with book sales and more to do with what she dismisses as “far right lies.”

Obama's Muslim Outreach - Epic Fail

When Barack Obama took over the Oval Office from George W. Bush in 2009, he was riding the crest of a tidal wave of gullibility among his supporters, who believed him to be the Chosen One bringing salvation and deliverance from the wasteland of the Bush years. In their fevered imagination, the inept, moronic, old-fashioned cowboy Bush had disastrously bungled his terms in office and caused the world to hate us. Now the multicultural, transnational, post-American demigod Obama had arrived, a deus ex machina from the heavens, offering hope and change to all. He was going to get the world to like us, really like us again.

But this self-delusional, media-assisted narrative has a tragicomic twist: two and a half years into his term, Obama not only hasn’t healed the oceans, harmonized the races, boosted the economy, or repaired our supposedly tattered reputation abroad, he has actually exacerbated all those issues. And now it’s confirmed that he hasn’t been any more successful at resolving the clash of civilizations either.

Behind Obama's Defense of a Mexican Killer

Last week Texas Governor Rick Perry resisted pressure to spare the life of Humberto Leal Garcia, 38, who had raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl, and instead had the convicted rapist/murderer put to death for his grotesque crimes.

Weathering such protests is nothing out of the ordinary for Perry; a strong proponent of the death penalty, he has overseen the execution of more than two hundred “dead men walking.” But what made this instance noteworthy is that the pleas came not just from the typical capital punishment opponents but from international diplomats, judges, military officials, politicians, even the United Nations. On a website devoted to Leal one can find a list of his supporters almost as long as the screw-studded stick he left inside his teen victim’s vagina. The topper was an eleventh-hour appeal from the Obama administration itself.

Narco-Terrorism’s Latin American Nexus

“Terrorism and drugs,” former Attorney General John Ashcroft once said, “go together like rats and the bubonic plague” – a plague that is increasingly spreading across our southern border and empowering the networks of both terrorists and drug traffickers.

For over twenty years Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director of the American Center for Democracy and the Economic Warfare Institute, and author of the important book Funding Evil, among others, has been hard at work exposing this toxic partnership. Currently writing a book about the Muslim Brotherhood and its financial network, Ehrenfeld is also the inspiration for “Rachel’s Law,” a key victory for free speech over the intimidating threat of “libel tourism,” and a fascinating story on in its own right. The law stemmed from an attempt by Khalid bin Mahfouz’s attempt to silence her accusation in Funding Evil that the Saudi billionaire had helped fund al Qaeda. The New York law (versions of which have spread now to seven other states) limits the enforcement of foreign libel judgments against American writers and publishers, in print and on the internet.

'Altamont Augie' and the War for a Generation’s Soul

“If you can remember the sixties,” quipped Timothy Leary, “you weren’t there.” Well, for those who can’t remember, or weren’t ever there, Richard Barager’s new novel Altamont Augie thrusts the reader into the torrent of that tumultuous era more successfully, and from a more unique perspective, than any I’ve read.

The book’s quirky title holds twofold significance. For anyone who does remember the sixties, “Altamont” is somber shorthand for the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, a rock concert in late 1969 attended by hundreds of thousands and featuring powerhouse bands of the day like the Jefferson Airplane and the Rolling Stones, who headlined the show. The concert is most notorious for its degeneration into increasing crowd violence, culminating in the stabbing death of a drug-fueled, gun-wielding concertgoer by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, whom the Stones had hired for security – all captured on film for the documentary Gimme Shelter. Long forgotten is another death at that concert – a man was found drowned in an irrigation canal. The victim’s name remains unknown, and the mystery of his identity lies at the heart of this novel.

Mark on 'The American Hour' Radio Today

Today (Wednesday, July 6) I'll be on internet radio, The American Hour, discussing the politics behind ABC/Disney's refusal to re-air or release a DVD of the controversial miniseries The Path to 9/11, which I worked on. Tune in at 1 p.m. PST here.