Friday, September 12, 2014

Patriots Vow to Fight on for Benghazi Answers

My article from the Sept. 11, 2014 issue of FrontPage magazine:


Patriots Vow to Fight on for Benghazi Answers
By Matthew Vadum


Questions about the Obama administration’s decision to let helpless Americans die in the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya two years ago won’t go away anytime soon.

But that won’t stop former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who desperately wants to be the next president, from trying to make the whole Benghazi episode that happened under her watch go away. 

So far the Clinton operation isn’t working.

Charles Woods, father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who died trying to fend off the Islamist attack, said he can’t understand why the Obama administration won’t answer even the most basic questions about what happened in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.

“When a mission is compromised, the warriors, they know they will be extracted,” said Woods, who was also a Navy SEAL himself. “During all of the hours that this attack happened, there was no attempt made to rescue.”

The Obama administration’s refusal to launch such a rescue mission stands in stark contrast to its willingness to swap Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier who defected to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for five members of the terrorist high command. The White House and Secretary of State John Kerry justify the cynical Bergdahl transaction by loudly proclaiming that it is U.S. policy never to leave a man behind.

But to President Obama, it is standing policy to leave Americans to their doom when a rescue mission interferes with reelection plans. At the time of the attack, the Obama White House made a conscious, calculated decision to let American officials perish overseas, fully expecting the incurious pro-Obama media to ignore what really happened.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Holder Expands Ferguson Witch-Hunt

My article from today's FrontPage magazine:


Holder Expands Ferguson Witch-Hunt

By Matthew Vadum

Despite the continuing absence of any evidence whatsoever that race was a factor in the police shooting of Michael Brown, the Department of Justice will be conducting a race-baiting witch-hunt aimed at the entire police force in Ferguson, Mo., Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday.

The new investigation is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded Democratic Party voter registration drive disguised as a civil rights investigation. Such hoaxes are the stock in trade of the radical community organizers who run the Obama White House. Statistics, by the way, suggest Ferguson is far from the hotbed of crime the media has portrayed it as. Ferguson reportedly has an average level of crime.

“When I visited Ferguson two weeks ago, I promised that the U.S. Department of Justice would continue to stand with the people there long after the national headlines had faded,” Holder said, according to the text of prepared remarks. Egged on by violent left-wing mobs and racial tension profiteers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson Sr., federal officials were already conducting what will almost certainly prove to be a fruitless civil rights-centered investigation of Brown’s death.

Today, with our investigation into the Ferguson Police Department and our reform efforts in St. Louis County, we’re taking significant steps to keep that promise,” Holder said. “As these efforts unfold, my colleagues and I will keep working with the people in Ferguson to ensure that a fair, thorough investigation occurs; to see that dialogue can be translated into concrete action; and to facilitate lasting, positive change – that brings together police officials, civil rights leaders, and members of the public – to bridge gaps and build understanding.”

Except perhaps for what some critics said was an initially heavy-handed and overly militaristic approach to crowd control used by Ferguson police, there is no evidence much, if any, change is actually needed in the St. Louis-area township.

To repeat, this expanded federal investigation of a local incident has absolutely nothing to do with justice and everything to do with electoral politics. Although at least 40 federal agents have reportedly been on the ground in the St. Louis area desperately searching for proof of racial animus on the part of Darren Wilson, a decorated Ferguson police officer who shot Brown Aug. 9 after the 18-year-old suspected gang member beat him and tried to take his handgun, such evidence remains elusive.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

I'm one of the most cited conservative journalists in America, apparently.

I'm one of the most cited conservative journalists in America, apparently.

Google my name and I'm everywhere.

I used to keep track of all the citations in the media but eventually it became an overwhelming task.

Now I only track citations in published books.

My work is cited in at least 64 books so far.

Authors on the right, such as John Fund, Phyllis Schafly, Michael Reagan, David Horowitz, and Michelle Malkin rely on my research and commentary.

Authors on the left, such as Arianna Huffington, Thomas Frank, and Center for American Progress visiting fellow Shirley Sagawa, have also given my work a vote of confidence by relying on it.

Here is the list as of September 4, 2014:

* asterisk indicates New York Times bestseller

In reverse chronological order (sorted by year):

64) Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan for Defeating the Left, by David Horowitz, Regnery Publishing, 2014, page citation unknown

63) Obama Holds America Hostage, by John P. Hunter III, John P. Hunter III, 2014, p. 100

62) Let Me Be Clear: Barack Obama's War on Millennials, and One Woman's Case for Hope, by Katie Kieffer, Crown Forum, 2014, page citation unknown

61) The People Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration, by Ben Shapiro, Threshold Editions, 2014, p. 270n55

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Hillary Joins the Ferguson Lynch Mob

My article from the Aug. 29, 2014 issue of FrontPage magazine:


Hillary Joins the Ferguson Lynch Mob

By Matthew Vadum

Breaking her calculated silence on the issue, Hillary Clinton said young Michael Brown was a victim of police brutality in Ferguson, Mo., the latest in a long line of helpless black victims mowed down by racist cops who are part of America’s corrupt criminal justice system.

It’s just more left-wing sloganeering, staples of which are knee-jerk cop hatred and making excuses for black criminals.

Clinton, wife of the man some used to call America’s “first black president,” has a long history of race-baiting and race-based pandering. She patronized black Americans in her insultingly awful mock African-American accent when she gave her infamous “I don’t feel no ways tired” speech.

The all-but-declared candidate for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president’s media-hyped public epiphany about Ferguson and Michael Brown comes days after 18-year-old Brown was laid to rest following a grotesque political rally led by the abominable racial arsonist Al Sharpton.

The former U.S. secretary of state embraces the politically correct lie that a helpless 6’4″ 292-lbs. Brown was shot in cold blood, arms raised while attempting to surrender to white police officer Darren Wilson, instead of the less convenient truth that Brown was trying to crush the decorated cop’s skull with his bare hands and reaching for the man’s handgun. Left-wingers like Clinton also prefer to ignore that fact that minutes before he attacked Wilson, Brown was captured on video bullying a much smaller East Indian shopkeeper during a robbery, an act that some might consider a hate crime. And the public is still waiting for Brown’s not-yet-released postmortem toxicology report.

The myth that Brown was a gentle giant won’t die. The racial-grievance industry, egged on by President Obama and his fellow radicals, won’t let it go. They need rampant racial tension and cop-hatred to persist in order to motivate their political base if Democrats are to have any hope of maintaining control of the U.S. Senate after the November congressional elections.