Posted on 06/28/2008 10:36:43 AM PDT by kristinn
The Washington Post published an article today in the Style section about researcher Danielle Allen's efforts to track down who is behind allegations that presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (Illinois) is a Muslim. Allen is an Obama supporter who works for the Institute for Advanced Study.
The article was written by Matthew Mosk. A curious choice for The Post considering Mosk's involvement in the nefarious MD4Bush scandal in which Mosk claimed to have been given access to a Free Republic poster's account to expose a Maryland GOP government appointee who was alleged to have commented on rumors that a Maryland Democratic mayor was an adulterer.
Mosk displayed the same talent for exposing Freepers' identities in today's article that he did in the MD4Bush scandal. However, the only person he exposed then was the Republican. The person (or persons) behind the MD4Bush screen name was not reported by Mosk.
The article Mosk wrote today purports to be about efforts to track down where the 'Obama is a Muslim' allegations began. However, it is actually a warning shot across the bow to opponents of Obama that they will be tracked down and exposed for speaking ill of the Obamessiah.
Mosk even makes sure to let Obamaniacs know who is behind Free Republic and where he can be found:
Of the file folders that are spread in neat rows across Allen's desk, only one is bulging. It holds printouts of the reams of conversations about Obama's religion appearing on Free Republic. Since its start in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, Calif....
The effort by The Post to protect Obama from rumors is in stark contrast to how they promoted potentially candidacy-damaging rumors eight-years ago.
When George W. Bush ran for president in 1999, The Washington Post led the way in rumor-mongering about whether he used cocaine in his youth. Bush refused to deny cocaine use saying that denying rumors just leads to having to deny more and more rumors. No one ever came forward with allegatons that they had first-hand knowledge of Bush using cocaine, but that didn't stop The Post and the mainstream media as painting Bush as a cokehead. No reporter ever asked Bill Clinton about cocaine use, even though several people known to Clinton claimed to have first-hand knowledge of Clinton using the drug while in public office.
While Mosk ignores The Post's own rumor-mongering, he leaves the impression of Free Republic as the rumor mill of the right. A fair reporter would have noted that Freepers exposed the fraudulent Texas Air National Guard documents that CBS News used in its attempt to derail President Bush's reelection bid in 2004. Buckhead, the Freeper who called foul on the documents, was tracked down by the Los Angeles Times even though he did not post his name on Free Republic.
Mosk's article closes with Allen complaining that the Internet has become as influential as unions and political action committees (PACs) in elections. Unstated is that the political activities of unions and PACs are heavily regulated by the federal government.
Allen seriously misunderstands the right to anonymous political speech--equating political speech with the right of a citizen to face his accuser when charged with a crime by the government:
..."This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."
While Mosk and The Post are furiously protecting Obama from the Obama is a Muslim allegation, they steadfstly refuse to report on Obama's well-documented connection to the terrorist supporter and Osama bin Laden sympathizer, Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink.
The Post article claims that the Internet's danger to politics is the ability to spread rumors anonymously. The real danger is the left's willingness to use the Internet to track down and destroy its perceived enemies. Allen and Mosk's teamwork exposing Freepers is one more example of that.
I want a preemptive autograph. :)
Obama’s thugs have already come and seen me - I emailed Beckwith about it a few months back -
They didn’t try to shut FR down, they were protecting their copyrights as many other publications have done with FR by refusing to allow full article posting.
FR did end up settling after a failed lawsuit defense based on the fair use clause. Jim agreed to abide by their requests and they agreed to not pursue monetary damage claims. If they wanted to shut us down, they wouldn’t have done this.
See 165.
Institute for Advanced Study
Is the Institute supported by public funds?
In addition to the financial support provided by individual donors and private foundations, some of the Institute’s programs receive funding from the federal government, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Security Agency. The State of New Jersey has helped to fund the Institute’s work in theoretical computer science and the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute. Also, some Members come to the Institute with support from foreign foundations and governments.
Danielle wonders why someone named Barack Hussein Obama, who was raised in Indonesia for awhile; would be scrutinized to a small degree about his background?
After all, he is only running to be President of the United States. Not a real important position.
If he was being selected for something important; say the editorial board of the Washington Post, then it would make sense to really dig into his background.
“Obama’s thugs have already come and seen me - I emailed Beckwith about it a few months back -”
I have warned other Freepers to be careful. There is nothing that Obama and his Black Panthers, Nation of Islam and maybe worse friends wouldn’t do to get their thug elected.
I’m shocked that anyone could think a freeper capable of even suggesting that Obama is a Muslim...or that he hates America and wants to see it ruined, or that he isn’t really eligible to become president, or that he is a demon-spawned killer of babies and hates all guns and freedom, or...
I have never seen any credible evidence that Obama is (a) not a Muslim, and (b) a Christian.
I think anyone who is thoughtful has to come to that conclusion; after all, is professing Christianity and then suckling at the teat of racists like Obama did evidence of being a Christian? Hardly.
Just a minor quibble. It was a self-admission.
There is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i), as well as Shi’ite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy (vol. 2, p. 552):than he does from anything FReepers might say...
"An apostate…is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, “Slay those who change their din [religion]”…Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition…prior to his execution."The contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy-endorsed Shafi’i manual of Islamic Law, ‘Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states:
"Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst…When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory…to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."Finally, Warraq (p.19) summarizes the means by which convicted apostates have been killed, typically by the sword (i.e., beheading)
"…though there are examples of apostates tortured to death, or strangled, burned, drowned, impaled, or flayed. The Caliph ‘Umar [d. 644] used to tie them to a post and had lances thrust into their hearts, and the [Mameluke] Sultan Baybars II (1308-09) made [their] torture legal."
LOL.
TB —like your list but your forgot to list the Pentagon bombing in 2001. Also, because I live in the area, I remember someone bombing/attacking the CIA building in Fairfax, VA sometime in the late ‘80’s? Someone...help me with the dates. I believe the fellow convicted was a Muzzie —
Both of you : add the word *thugs*.
I have had up close and personal encounters with these people and they would not hesitate to physically assault a 5’3’ 60-year-old woman (who just happened to be accompanied by two 6’3’ soldiers), nor would they shy away from lying through their teeth about anyone who disagrees with them in public, including attempts to destroy the opponents’ businesses.
THUGS. That includes the women.
Over a period of 45 years, they have earned my complete opposition and contempt.
“allen and mosk’s teamwork exposing freepers is one more example of that.”
teamwork exposing freepers?
sounds like the future secret police hunting out enemies of the state.
(heil obama and hillary!!!)
IMHO
MacArthur Foundation, which doles out as much as $500,000 to individuals like Danielle Allen, a Classics professor at University of Chicago, to help her write about Thucydides, Aristotle, and Hobbes.
******
Open Society Institute
2004 Soros Foundations Network Report
No conversation in the United States—or anywhere in the world, for that matter, since skin color seems to be a universal indicator of status—is as charged and complex as the one about race. It is, among other things, quite personal—what MacArthur Fellow Danielle Allen calls “racial distrust” is deeply ingrained, and every person brings to these matters his or her sense of pride, principle, and hurt. The consequences of past and continuing discrimination affect virtually every matter that OSI deals with, for there can be no truly open society where access and opportunities are limited by race.
personally, I’d have been more afraid of the guy in post # 157
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