Smearing Ted Cruz

From today's issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Smearing Ted Cruz

By Matthew Vadum

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is not disappointing his conservative supporters.

In his first few weeks in the world’s most sclerotic deliberative body, Cruz has already come under intense fire from the Left, and surprisingly, from a few corners in the GOP.

Leftist Obama sycophant Greg Sargent, the Washington Post‘s in-house ideological purity enforcer, confers a kind of credibility on Cruz and those like him by calling them crazy.

Cruz “keeps untold numbers of base voters in a state of perpetual delusion,” Sargent writes. He does this with “the hints about creeping socialism, the suggestions that Dems are anti-American, the notion that Obama’s modest executive actions reveal him as an enemy of the Constitution, etc.”

This tedious hazing of conservatives has become an ingrained ritual in the Senate in recent years. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have all been targets of smear campaigns as they took their seats.

But the fact that the denunciations of Cruz from both inside and outside the Senate have been so sweeping, so bitter, and so quick to arrive, suggests that the freshman senator is off to an excellent start.

Cruz himself welcomes the Left’s enmity.

Hagel: Israel An Apartheid State

My article from the Feb. 20, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Hagel: Israel An Apartheid State

By Matthew Vadum

President Obama’s would-be defense secretary claimed in a speech that Israel is a treaty-breaking rogue nation that is in the process of becoming an apartheid state.

The comments from top Pentagon nominee Chuck Hagel came two years ago during a question and answer session following a speech the former U.S. senator made at Rutgers School of Law. With his suspicious ties to theocratic Iran, Hagel is part of President Obama’s Islamist-appeasement dream team, alongside CIA director nominee John Brennan, and John Kerry, the pathologically anti-American Secretary of State.

Then-student Kenneth Wagner, a pro-Israel activist, recently told Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon about an email he sent during the April 9, 2010 event to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Dorner, Folk Hero of the Left

My piece from the Feb. 14, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Dorner, Folk Hero of the Left

By Matthew Vadum

Nobody loves cop killers more than left-wingers do.

The grotesque outpouring of love for cop killer Chris Dorner, an ex-cop now presumed dead in a fiery shootout at Big Bear Lake, California, should make all sane Americans fear for the future of their country.

Dorner is suspected of killing at least one police officer and two others. He allegedly gunned down 28-year-old Monica Quan and her husband-to-be 27-year-old Keith Lawrence outside their home. Quan’s father Randy, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer turned lawyer, represented Dorner in disciplinary hearings that resulted in Dorner’s dismissal. Dorner reportedly called Mr. Quan days after the murder to taunt him.

Dorner’s cross-country rampage has been met in recent days with Facebook fan pages, sympathetic statements on Twitter, and grassroots-level enthusiasm for this brutal sociopath.

But making vicious killers into folk heroes is nothing new for the Left. American history in recent decades is bursting with cop killers romanticized by the Left.

Among those who have stuck it to The Man by killing “pigs” are: Troy Davis, executed in 2011 for murdering police officer Mark MacPhail as he came to the aid of an assault victim; Lovelle Mixon, killed in a gunfight with police in 2009; Mumia abu-Jamal, imprisoned for life for the 1981 murder of a police officer; Leonard Peltier, convicted in 1977 for gunning down FBI agents; Assata Shakur, escaped from prison in 1979, a member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA), having been granted “asylum” in Cuba; and 1960s radicals like Marilyn Buck.

In a rambling self-incriminating manifesto that Dorner posted online, the ex-Los Angeles police officer says “No one grows up and wants to be a cop killer … but, as a young police officer I found that the violent suspects on the streets are not the only people you have to watch.”

Dorner argues that he is sacrificing himself for the greater good by going on his murder spree, which he refers to as “a necessary evil” aimed at effecting change in the Los Angeles Police Department. “The only thing that changes policy and garners attention is death.”

In one of several chilling passages, Dorner waxes philosophical: “Let the balance of loss of life take place. Sometimes a reset needs to occur.”

In his online screed, Dorner praises an assortment of left-wingers. He lauds President Obama for doing what he considers a good job under difficult circumstances. For their anti-Second Amendment efforts, Dorner hails TV host Piers Morgan, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Vice President Joe Biden. He also gives shout-outs to a galaxy of celebrities and public figures. Complimenting the First Lady on her hairstyle, he interjects, “Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.”

Double-Voting for Obama

My piece from the Feb. 13, 2013, issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Double-Voting for Obama

By Matthew Vadum

After publicly boasting that she voted twice for President Obama in November, a left-wing Ohio activist associated with a George Soros-funded group claims she did nothing wrong by double-voting.

“There’s absolutely no intent on my part to commit voter fraud,” said Melowese Richardson, a longtime Cincinnati poll worker and Democratic activist whose unlawfully cast ballot canceled out a lawful ballot and thereby deprived another citizen of his or her right to vote.

Voter fraud, also known as vote fraud, election fraud, and electoral fraud, refers to the specific offenses of fraudulent voting, impersonation, perjury, voter registration fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, bribery, destroying already cast ballots, and a multitude of crimes related to the electoral process.

Having already incriminated herself in front of a TV news camera, Richardson said she’ll contest criminal voter fraud charges. “I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States,” she said nonsensically.

Hamilton County, Ohio, records reportedly indicate that Richardson voted by absentee ballot on Nov. 1. Ten days later she told an official she also voted at a polling place out of fear that her absentee ballot would not count.

County records also accuse Richardson, who has registered thousands of people to vote, of being disruptive and hiding “things from other poll workers on Election Day after another female worker reported she was intimidated by Richardson.” An investigation revealed that the perpetrator’s granddaughter, India Richardson, also voted twice in November.

All of this is fine with the activists of the Left who only care about observing laws and technicalities when they advance their cause.

Raking Brennan Over the Coals

From the Feb. 8, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Raking Brennan Over the Coals

By Matthew Vadum

CIA director nominee John O. Brennan took heat during a confirmation hearing yesterday but not on the issues that matter most to America’s survival.

The nature of the struggle between the United States and the rest of Western civilization with totalitarian, irredentist Islam, was barely touched upon during Brennan’s confirmation hearing. Distressingly, Brennan is an intellectually vapid, double-talking bureaucrat and leading Obama administration apologist for Islamic terrorism who has exonerated radical Islamists again and again.

But instead of asking Brennan about his softness on terrorism, senators focused on the U.S. use of drone strikes abroad against terrorist targets. Despite his apparent inability to comprehend the nature of our Islamist enemies and the threat they pose to America’s democratic values, Brennan now serves as the Obama White House counter-terrorism and “assassination czar.”

Brennan is regarded as the architect of the administration’s overseas drone program that targets terrorists. President Obama has bragged about personally designating targets for assassination on his so-called kill list.

Although the drone program has scored some major successes, including the instant cremation of senior al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki, squeamish senators raked Brennan over the coals regarding the controversial program. Although an enemy combatant, al-Awlaki was a U.S. citizen.

“It’s the idea of giving any president unfettered power to kill an American without checks and balances that’s so troubling,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore). “Every American has the right to know when their government believes it’s allowed to kill them.”

Oliver Stone's Bush Derangement Syndrome

From the Feb. 6, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Oliver Stone's Bush Derangement Syndrome

By Matthew Vadum

Editor’s note: The following is the ninth installment of a series of articles Frontpage is running in response to Oliver Stone’s neo-Communist documentary series, “The Untold History of the United States.” Frontpage will be reviewing each episode of the Stone series, exposing the leftist hateful lies about America and setting the record straight. Below is a review of Part 9 of the series.

George W. Bush schemed and plotted to become virtually an American emperor long before becoming president in 2001, according to neo-Communist movie-maker Oliver Stone.

Working with various shady so-called neoconservatives, Bush clawed his way into the Oval Office so he could impose his will on the world. The 43rd president used every unethical means at his disposal to achieve his unsavory objectives, Stone’s audience is told in the ninth episode of his multi-part hateful assault on modern American history, Untold History of the United States.

Moreover, as Stone sees it, the U.S. cheated to win the Cold War. George H.W. Bush cheated by using unfair campaign tactics against Michael Dukakis. George W. Bush and the Supreme Court cheated Al Gore out of the presidency. Bill Clinton, literally a serial sexual cheater, cheated Americans out of a “peace dividend.”

The episode is chock full of the kind of sweeping statements, outright lies, sleazy tabloid-worthy innuendos, and sloppy research we’ve come to expect from the pretentious movie director who has always shown a callous disdain for the facts.

Amnesty 2013

From the Jan. 30, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Amnesty 2013

By Matthew Vadum

Left-wingers are once again pushing a so-called comprehensive immigration reform package that helps their cause more than it helps America.

The proposal, still in rough outline, was unveiled at a Capitol Hill press conference Monday. It makes vague promises, the same promises that have been echoing in the corridors of power for decades, of finally enforcing the nation’s porous border with Mexico. It comes days after left-wing groups vowed to lay the groundwork to turn Texas deep Democrat blue.

The plan is backed by a bipartisan group of senators known informally as the Gang of 8. The four Democrats are Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Illinois), Robert Menendez (New Jersey), Chuck Schumer (New York), and Michael Bennet (Colorado). The Republican half of the gang consists of John McCain (Arizona), Marco Rubio (Florida), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), and freshman senator Jeff Flake (Arizona).

The proposal has less to do with helping immigrants, legal or otherwise, and more to do with helping politicians.

Kerry as Obama’s Overseas Enforcer

From the Jan. 25, 2013 issue of FrontPage Magazine:

Kerry as Obama's Overseas Enforcer

By Matthew Vadum

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) promised yesterday to faithfully execute President Obama’s chaotic, destructive foreign policy if confirmed as the new U.S. secretary of state.

At a congressional hearing, Obama’s nominee to replace Hillary Clinton at Foggy Bottom vowed to de-emphasize the military role “thrust upon us” by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, saying “we cannot afford a diplomacy that is defined by troops or drones or confrontation.”

Kerry told his fellow senators that it was time to highlight U.S. programs abroad aimed at helping poor people, advancing human rights, and combating disease.

“We cannot allow the extraordinary good we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely,” said Kerry.

Senators from both parties, including John McCain (R-Ariz.), warmly lauded Kerry for whatever it is he’s been doing in the Senate since the 1980s.

The Left’s favorite Boston Brahmin, this dull, seemingly passionless, double-talking man, bereft of important legislative accomplishments, now appears virtually certain to become the nation’s next top diplomat after a confirmation hearing that was more of a group hug than a grilling. Kerry has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 29 years. If confirmed he would be the first committee member to rise to the post of secretary of state in more than a century.