(Here is a video of the CNN interview mentioned toward the end of the article in which Khan seems to contend that there is no such thing as Sharia law.
Kahn’s apparent denial that Sharia law exists comes at about 4:46 into the video. A sample of Kahn’s writings on Sharia (Islamic) law is available here.– DM)
New York Post columnist and former Hoover Institution media fellow Paul Sperry appeared on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon to discuss his column for Breitbart News, “Khizr Khan Believes the Constitution ‘Must Always Be Subordinated to the Sharia.’”
“It turns out that we were conned by Khan,” Perry quipped. “His past Islamic writings reveal his support for sharia, and extreme sharia enforcers, which totally contradicts his support for the Constitution he waved in all our faces at the Democratic convention.”
“Specifically, in a book review I unearthed from the ’80s, Khan praises a Pakistani mullah — of course, Khan is an immigrant from Pakistan — he praises this Pakistani mullah who advocates for the enforcement of barbaric sharia punishments, like floggings, amputations, and beheadings, for those who violate Islamic laws,” Sperry said.
“In another paper he wrote, ‘Defining Sharia Law,’ Khan gratefully cites the notorious Muslim Brotherhood radicals who called for installing Islamic regimes in the West through ‘civilization jihad,’ which is what you’re talking about in terms of the infiltration of this fifth column that the Muslim Brotherhood has built up with their infrastructure in the United States, this terrorist support network too,” Sperry continued.
“If I can just say, it was an absolute mistake, the more we learn about Khan, to assume that the father was just as patriotic as his war-hero son,” he argued. “And Republicans were stupid to create a no-fire zone around him. I mean, this guy is not the champion of the Constitution and Western principles we were told he was. It turns out he’s not an expert on the Constitution, he’s an expert on sharia law, which makes an absolute mockery of the Constitution.”
Bannon noted that some Republicans, even previously dedicated Trump supporters like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, insist that Khan should be given unlimited deference as a Gold Star father.
“I don’t honor anybody higher than Gold Star mothers and fathers, people that have lost their sons and daughters in combat, in defense of their country,” Bannon said. “I haven’t heard any question at all that the son was an absolute hero, in fact walked toward the danger, in protection of his men, and gave his life for his country and his men. His son’s an absolute hero.”
‘However, Chris Christie’s just dead wrong,” Bannon continued. “It doesn’t give you a free shot on goal to say anything.”
Sperry agreed, and also supported Bannon’s characterization of Khizr Khan as “one of the biggest proponents in this country of sharia law.”
“He’s got dozens of citations in Islamic law journals, and syllabi, teaching sharia law. He is a world-renowned expert on sharia, not the Constitution,” Sperry said. “He’s a devout Muslim, this is what he believes in. I think you’re right – you have to separate both the son and the mother from the scrutiny, but the father deserves a lot of scrutiny. He’s clearly got an agenda. He’s an angry political activist up there, in a non-stop parade on the cable networks, haranguing and wagging his finger at Trump and all of us, lecturing us.”
“Speaking of the mother, I think it was Monday night, on Don Lemon of CNN, he hectored Trump for having, quote, ‘no respect of women.’ And then last night, on Anderson Cooper, Khan said, wagging that finger at Trump, quote, ‘You have disrespected women.’ Yet, this is the same guy who admires, from his writings — and this goes back to the ’80s – he admires a Pakistani mullah who says it’s the right of men to beat their wives,” Sperry said.
He also mentioned the sharia standards for women to prove charges of sexual assault against men, noting that “she’ll get charged, because she’s not good enough, as a witness” unless she has multiple male witnesses to back up her claims.
“That’s doctrinal,” Sperry noted. “That’s not something anybody is making up. That’s doctrinal. But this is what this Khan evidently believes as well. I mean, he’s praising the guy who blatantly said, you know, this is a right for men to have.”
Bannon pointed out that during his Anderson Cooper interview, Khan claimed, “I do not stand for any sharia law, because there is no such thing.”
Sperry said that was a “howling lie.”
“I mean, you go through all his writings, he clearly goes into great detail about what sharia is, and is a strong proponent of it,” he pointed out.
“Did he lie on national TV?” Bannon asked.
“It appears that way,” Sperry replied. “The bloom is really coming off the rose here on this guy.”
He further questioned the veracity of some of the claims in Khzir Khan’s bio: “In his background, there’s some serious questions, so I’m digging into that. There’s probably going to be a lot more coming out on this guy, as he continues wagging his finger.”
Supporters reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a Donald J. Trump rally in Ashburn, Va., on Tuesday. Credit Chet Strange for The New York Times
Donald J. Trump all but erased his enormous fund-raising deficit against Hillary Clinton in the span of just two months, according to figures released by his campaign on Tuesday, converting the passion of his core followers into a flood of small donations on a scale rarely seen in national politics.
Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $64 million through a joint digital and direct mail effort in July, according to his campaign, the bulk of it from small donations. All told, Mr. Trump and his party brought in $82 million last month, only slightly behind Mrs. Clinton, and ended with an enormous pool of $74 million in cash on hand, suggesting he might now have the resources to compete with Mrs. Clinton in the closing stretch of the campaign.
The figures mark a major achievement in Mr. Trump’s campaign, which until recent months was largely funded by a trickle of hat and T-shirt sales and by Mr. Trump’s wallet. And they suggest Mr. Trump has the potential to be the first Republican nominee whose campaign could be financed chiefly by grass-roots supporters pitching in $10 or $25 apiece, echoing the unprecedented success of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the Democratic presidential primary.
Mrs. Clinton has “been doing this for 20 years,” said Steven Mnuchin, a New York investor who serves as Mr. Trump’s finance chairman. “We’ve been doing it for two months.”
Exact figures — including a precise breakdown of total cash raised in small increments by each candidate — will not be available until Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton file their formal monthly reports with the Federal Election Commission this month. And Mr. Trump’s surge is coming very late in the campaign, at a point where advertising rates climb and the chance to invest in a long-term digital and campaign infrastructure is long past.
But the campaign’s figures suggest that after months of dithering and false starts, Mr. Trump has begun to exploit an opportunity that many Republicans have long viewed as his for the taking: marrying his powerful credibility among grass-roots Republicans with the high-tech tools of large-scale digital fund-raising. During July 2012, for example, Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee reported raising a total of just $19 million from contributions of less than $200.
“There was always that potential, but you didn’t have candidates who were as uniquely positioned in the same way that Trump is,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican strategist who ran digital fund-raising at the Republican National Committee under President George W. Bush.
In a segment that seemed to be catered for the Media Research Center today, The View panel argued for half the show on whether or not media bias exists. ABC Senior Legal Correspondent Sunny Hostin was the most vocal liberal panelist who sparred with FNC’s Jedediah Bila who first brought up the topic. Before Bila could even finish her sentence, Hostin jumped in to shake her head emphatically and state that media bias didn’t exist. “That’s not true. Only if you watch Fox News everyday,” she added.
The topic first got brought up when the panel talked about Trump’s claim that the election might be rigged. Jedediah Bila brought up that it reminded her of another Republican complaint: media bias. Bila argued that there was indeed a liberal media bias but Republicans should just recognize it and move on. She couldn’t finish her thought, however because the other panelists jumped in to attack her point that media bias even existed.
BILA: This is similar to me when they say well, the media is biased. Yes, the media is largely biased against Republicans, deal with it.
HOSTIN: I don’t believe that.[Shaking her head] That’s not true.
BILA: No, it’s true, C’mon–
HOSTIN: That’s not true.Only if you watch Fox News everyday.
After cutting to a commercial break, Bila started off the segment by defending the idea that there is a liberal bias in the media.
BILA: It is biased. I accept the premise, what my argument was I accept the premises it was biased. In 2014 there was a poll and they concluded, Politico ran a study on it, 7% of reporters defined themselves as Republican. I think if you look across the media, you have to say, okay, there is a bias. The media tends to go to journalism school and look at academia. The majority tend to tilt left.
Hostin jumped in to condemn Bila’s claim as “very dangerous” before making up a wonky definition of “media bias.”
HOSTIN: That’s so ludicrous.
BEHAR: You mean only liberals go to college?
BILA [to Hostin]: You don’t think academia is biased in general?
HOSTIN: I think it’s very dangerous because what you’re saying because you’re saying the media is biased in terms of government influence over — and I think covert censorship. What you see in North Korea, and what you see in —
BILA: No, I’m not saying it’s from the government.
HOSTIN:–We don’t see that. That’s a true definition of media bias, Jed.
BILA: [shaking head] No.
Curiously enough, of all people, Whoopi Goldberg and Sara Haines agreed with Bila that media bias exists. They didn’t agree wholeheartedly about why it exists or how it functions but they both agreed that there was media bias.
Hostin couldn’t be swayed, however. She continued her tirade, saying Bila was “throwing flames out there” by even suggesting that there was a bias in the media.
HOSTIN: What we see here, we have true journalists. Like a Barbara Walters, like an Anderson Cooper, like Morley Safer, like Diane Sawyer, Christiane Amanpour. I’ve worked with Christiane. I’ve worked with Anderson Cooper.They are true journalists. [applause] They are not biased.
BILA: There are some, there are some, I work with them all the time—
HOSTIN: This notion that the media is biased–You’re, you’re like throwing flames out there.
She later added:
HOSTIN: True journalists tell a story down the line, true journalists- So the suggestion you’re making is the media is biased, it’s dangerous and wrong.
Throughout the whole segment, Bila would repeatedly defend her opinion by qualifying, “I’m not saying every journalist is biased. I work with journalists all day long.” She was simply saying that “media bias exists.”
At the close, right before a commercial, Hostin threw in a final jab at Bila’s employer, Fox News Channel.
BILA: I’d like to see more of what you’re describing, though. I would like to see those old school people who came out and you legitimately couldn’t —
HOSTIN: They’re there.
BILA: But more of them.
HOSTIN: They’re there, Just change the channel, Jed. [applause] Just change the channel.
CNN contributor Corey Lewandowski used to be Donald Trump’s campaign manager.
Tuesday night on CNN, he showed America what that means, dredging up a request on President Obama’s college transcripts and asking whether he got into Harvard as a U.S. citizen.
Let’s just say two other people on the CNN panel were pissed at him for bringing it up, and the discussion got heated in a hurry, with one panelist telling Lewandowski:
“I’m going to Beyonce you: Boy, bye.”
Watch the full video above, and read the transcript below, via Media Matters:
COREY LEWANDOWSKI: I just think it’s important to remember, right, that the president of the United States has an obligation to still govern the country. And if he wants to engage in partisan politics, I don’t think this is the right venue for it. He wants to go on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton, absolutely he has the right to do that.
But that also means he becomes fair game for any retort that Donald Trump wants to put on him. And I just think that the decorum of the presidency of the United States, the East Room is not the place to engage in those partisan attacks.
ANGELA RYE: Don, let me just respond, really quickly to this. Let me be very clear on this. Donald Trump has been attacking the president long before he began campaigning for this important office. He is the one who was the spokesperson for the birther movement, and was calling for transcripts for — and saying the president was an affirmative action admittee of Harvard. So let’s —
LEWANDOWSKI: Did he ever release his transcripts from Harvard?
RYE: By the way, tell me about those tax returns, while you’re at it.
LEWANDOWSKI: Well you raised the issue, i’m just asking. You raised the issue, did he ever release his transcripts or his admission to Harvard University? You raised the issue, so just “yes,” or “no.”
RYE: Corey? Just a moment, I’m going to Beyonce you. Boy, bye. You just so out of line right now, tell your candidate to release his tax returns.
LEWANDOWSKI: Don’t raise the issue if you don’t want to address it.
RYE: Two words, tax returns. Tax returns.
LEWANDOWSKI: Harvard University transcripts. You raised the issue, did he ever release them?
Amid new claims from Republican Donald Trump that the fall election may be “rigged” against him, the Obama administration is considering taking a step toward nationalizing the cyber security of the process, according to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
“We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” Johnson told a media breakfast Wednesday.
“There’s a vital national interest in our election process, so I do think we need to consider whether it should be considered by my department and others critical infrastructure,” he said at the breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
DHS plays a vital security role in 16 areas of critical infrastructure. DHS describes it this way: “There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
A White House policy directive adds, “The federal government also has a responsibility to strengthen the security and resilience of its own critical infrastructure, for the continuity of national essential functions, and to organize itself to partner effectively with and add value to the security and resilience efforts of critical infrastructure owners and operators.”
Johnson did not identify any current problems with security of the elections, but did note that there are thousands of localities that conduct elections differently.
“There’s no one federal election system. There are some 9,000 jurisdictions involved in the election process,” he said.
“There’s a national election for president, there are some 9,000 jurisdictions that participate, contribute to collecting votes, tallying votes and reporting votes,” he said.
Without giving many details of what his department of the administration had in mind, he did say that in the short term he would likely reach out to the 9,000 jurisdictions with advice on how to conduct security of the election.
A good proportion of the global media-consuming populace currently believes that Donald Trump, at a rally in Loudoun County, Virginia, this week, angrily booted a crying baby from the premises during his speech.
But it turns out the story is not that “Trump Hates Babies.” The story is that dishonest media professionals understood that variations of “Trump Hates Babies” make for fantastic headlines.
Today I went to the Donald Trump rally in Ashburn, VA. Since I know good people can disagree over whether or not to support Trump, I am just going to post some candid thoughts below. I report, you decide!Since I am the chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, I was working with the campaign in advance of the rally. On Monday evening, a senior Trump staffer emailed me and asked me if I would be willing to give the invocation at the rally. I said I’d be happy to, but I also told him that as a born again Christian, I end my prayers with “I pray all of this in the name of Jesus.” Since I know that in this day and age mentionoing the name of Jesus can offend some people, I said I’d understand if they preferred that someone else give the invocation. His response to me was: “We know that’s how you pray, that’s why we asked you.”
After the welcome (by John Whitbeck), invocation (by yours truly), pledge (by Sheriff Michael Chapman), and National Anthem (by Briar Woods High School Teacher Nina Peyton), we waited back stage to get a photo with Donald Trump. And then – he was there, with a crowd of staff, Loudoun County Sheriff’s deputies, and Secret Service. I was immediately struck by his presence – he radiates confidence, but also I was struck by his soft spoken demeanor. He spoke softly and thoughtfully the entire time we were backstage.
The first person to get a photo with him was an older man. We had been chatting before-hand while all of us were waiting for Trump to arrive, and he introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel Louis Dorfman and he had served in the 82nd Airborne. He shook hands with Donald Trump, and handed him his Purple Heart saying he wanted Trump to have it as thanks for standing up for wounded vets. Trump was surprised and said something like “I can’t take this!” We were all surprised and not expecting this. It was pretty cool to see the respect this veteran had for Trump.
Then it was my turn to shake hands with Trump and get my photo taken. I told Mr. Trump that I was the chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee and he immediately stopped and looked at me: “Will, how do I win Loudoun?” he asked me. We started talking and he called over one of his staffers. “George, these people here in Virginia know what we need to do to win Virginia.” And then – in a really cool turn of events – John Whitbeck, the GOP chairs of Prince William County and Arlington County, Trump’s campaign staffer, and me are all huddled in a corner, photos forgotten, strategizing on how Trump will win Virginia. Trump didn’t do a lot of talking. He listened to all of us, he made sure his staff had our emails, and he said that we would have everything we needed.
As we finished up the photos, Trump looked at all the Sheriff’s Deputies. “Let’s get them in the photo,” he said. And then he was taking group photos with all of the cops. They loved it. In fact, my favorite photo I took was all of the deputies with Trump (I’ll post it tomorrow). I was struck by how Trump didn’t forget the “little people.” Even though it was just a few of us and no media, he was relaxed and took the time to get photos with everyone.
The rally itself was super cool. Lots of energy, packed room (something like 2000 people had to be turned away because the auditorium was packed – and just on 24 hours notice!), everyone stood the entire time even though they all had seats. One thing I want to mention is the baby crying, because that has been national news. Contrary to news stories, it was a very funny thing, Trump was very supportive of the mom calling her and her baby “beautiful” and “wonderful”, and then when the baby kept crying he turned it into a joke. Everyone was laughing and it was actually very endearing and funny. Not at all anti mom or anti baby like the media has portrayed it to be.
Which brings me to the final point: I was there and saw and heard the entire event with the mom and baby. There was nothing to it. But then after I’m reading all the news coverage saying “Trump hates moms and babies!!!” I started to doubt myself. Did I really miss a huge story right in front of me? I started asking others who were there, including a husband and wife with young kids. And everyone in the room said the same thing: there was no story here. Trump was being funny and personable and going out of his way to make sure the mom wasn’t embarrased by making it a funny situation.
My conclusion is that the media is selling us a narrative. Be very skeptical of what the media is telling you, because I saw it with my own eyes and it was something very different.
Folks, that was a first-hand account from an attendee of the rally, who says he was unable to find another rally attendee who saw the exchange as anything but polite — and a forgettable, not-newsworthy event.
Meanwhile, the civilized world has since been informed by the media that didn’t bother to find a single rally attendee who saw the exchange as anything but polite.
Click to the next page to read what they instead chose to report.
Trump’s supporters were quick to dismiss the moment as a joke. But joke or not (it wasn’t), it was almost unfathomably cruel. He didn’t just humiliate a woman already dealing with the extraordinarily stressful situation of a crying baby in a public forum, he made it clear to a roomful of people he wants to vote for him in November that his needs always, always come first.
Rolling Stone — having learned nothing about checking multiple sources after Sabrina Erdely almost brought down the company — not only didn’t bother to see if any attendee witnessed the exchange differently, it jumped directly to the type of language that better fits the behavior of ISIS.
For a certain kind of Trump devotee, there’s nothing he can do that will repel them: as he himself has noted, he could stand on Fifth Avenue shooting people and they’d still vote for him.For others, though, it might play out differently. The most obvious group is women …
Well, it only “might play out differently” for women because the Guardian really wants it to play out differently for women, and thus attached the despicable headline.
Folks, with everything you read here on out, remember that objective truth is not the primary motivation of the outlets providing you coverage of this race.
Donald Trump is “woefully unprepared,” President Obama said Tuesday. “Unfit to be president.”
Well, at least this is one area where the president is a bona fide, qualified expert.
If ever there was a man who entered the White House woefully unprepared and unfit to be president, it was Mr. Obama.
Sure, he hummed a good tune about unifying the country, ushering America into a new “post-racial” era. And he spoke of calming the seas and easing global violence and sprinkling peace between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Middle East and around the world.
Lord, if we could just have 2008 back again. Those were the good old days.
Back before cops were targeted for assassination on the street. Before every police action became viewed first and foremost through the lens of radical racialism. Before the leader of the free world saw it as his duty to routinely insert himself into police matters from Baltimore to Cambridge to Ferguson, Missouri, to Sanford, Florida.
Those were the days before the president denounced people as xenophobes and racists for wanting to enforce the nation’s duly enacted immigration laws. Before tens of thousands of haggard families, children and slaves came rumbling through Mexico on “death trains,” drawn by the president’s illegal invitation. Back in the good old days, before 2008, everyone — including Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton — all agreed on building a fence to secure our southern border.
And those were the days before America’s first half-Muslim president traveled the world to apologize for American exceptionalism. Before he traveled to Cairo and told Muslims that “it is part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” Still looking for that one in the Constitution.
Before 2008, civilized Americans had never heard of people being burned alive in cages. Drowned in cages. We were not familiar with the practice of throwing gay people off of rooftops for religious purposes. Priests were not beheaded on their own altar.
Yet it is this same president who has presided over all of this these past eight years who has the gall to declare Donald Trump “unprepared” and “unqualified” to be president.
“I said so last week,” he responded when a reporter asked if Mr. Trump is unqualified. “And he keeps on proving it.”
“The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn’t appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia means that he’s woefully unprepared to do this job.”
Some gall.
And then on top of that, the president gives us his hand-picked successor, who is the one person in all of America who could possibly rival him for the blame of so many of our woes around the world today.
For 25 years, Mrs. Clinton has been part of the problem around here. For the first four years of Mr. Obama’s presidency, she helped craft his disastrous foreign policy.
Indeed, if Mrs. Clinton is what Mr. Obama considers “qualified” and “fit” for the presidency, we probably should settle for “unqualified” and “unfit.”
WarSclerotic 
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