ACT! for America

Act! For America Pushes Two Debunked Boston Marathon Stories

There is a rumor taking off on the right, which has been embraced by the likes of Glenn Beck and Pamela Geller, that the Saudi student questioned over the Boston marathon attack is being deported. The rumor is, unsurprisingly, “one hundred percent false.”

But even though multiple news outlets, including the conservative Daily Caller, have debunked the story, the anti-Muslim group ACT! For America has decided to go ahead and run with it. The group sent out an email at 4:47 this afternoon repeating the rumor and warning that “something fishy is going on.”

The email also cites a debunked New York Post story (which has even been recanted by the Post) that identified two men who were supposedly potential suspects.

Act! For America had plenty of time to go keep up with this new information and hold back on sending their members an email about the two now-discredited stories. But accuracy has never been their strong point.

Brian Tashman's blog

Brigitte Gabriel Sees Islamic Indoctrination Everywhere; Sandy Rios Warns of 'Jewish Leftists' who are 'Eager to Embrace Islam'

The extremist group ACT! for America has combined the far right’s loathing of public schools and animosity towards Muslims into a new report, warning that public school students are “indoctrinated in Islam” through their history textbooks which have turned classrooms into “recruiting grounds for Islam.” Yesterday, we noted that ACT! for America’s Executive Director Guy Rodgers and Eagle Forum president Phyllis Schlafly urged parents to imitate notorious textbook censor Norma Gabler. Today the organization’s president Brigitte Gabriel appeared on the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios in the Morning where she claimed that their new “shocking” report reveals that textbook publishers and Muslims are using the same tactics as Adolf Hitler to indoctrinate students:

Gabriel: What we found was shocking and we found that history is being whitewashed, Islam is given preferential treatment in public schools, and political correctness has literally altered how history is being taught in our public schools to our children.

…

How can the future generation of America protect America and make the right decisions that will protect and serve America and keep America a great nation if they are being fed mistruths about historical, factual information. Hitler made a very important statement, Hitler said, ‘give me the children, I will change society in ten years,’ and that is exactly what he did and look where we ended up and we’re seeing the same thing happening with our children right now. And by the way, all paid for by our tax dollars in public schools.

Later in the show, Rios, who earlier said that secular Jews have been “the worst enemies of the country,” asked Gabriel why “Jewish leftists in this country” such as Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman “are eager to embrace Islam.” Gabriel, of course, blamed universities for teaching “anti-America and anti-Israel” material with the help of Saudi oil money. She even claimed that President Obama’s supposed belief that “America is bad” and must apologize for its wrongdoings “is a direct result of what is being taught at our universities.”

Rios: I read a quote from Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, you know Jewish leftists in this country are eager to embrace Islam, even in Europe, they are denying, they are trying to bridge the gap, they’re saying ‘oh, no, no, no, our Islam brothers,’ even though there’s slaughter going on in Europe. We see the American left, we see commentators, and I have to tell you, firsthand knowledge here in Washington, we see even Republicans in leadership here bending over backwards to accommodate Islam. Why? From your perspective, as a person born and raised in the Middle East now living here and married to an American, why are Americans doing this?

Gabriel: Great question because this is exactly why we are talking about the importance of education. In my first book, Because They Hate, I dedicated chapters to how we’re losing our children on college campuses because for the last sixteen to twenty years, because of the oil wealth, the Saudis have been pumping millions into our universities, setting up Middle East Studies departments and Political Science departments and appointing Arab professors who are anti-America and anti-Israel, to teach our children that America is bad, Israel is evil and the Islamic world is oppressed because of the imperialism of the United States. So you have these children who have been graduating out of our universities for the last twenty years who have been fed a steady diet of mistruth, misrepresentations and hate and resentment against America who are today the policymakers, the decision makers, the one on Capitol Hill, the graduates of our Ivy League universities. Look, we don’t have a Commander-in-Chief, we have an ‘Apologizer-in-Chief’ who never misses an opportunity to apologize on behalf of America because in his mind he thinks America is bad, America has done a lot of wrong in the world that we have to apologize for, and that is a direct result of what is being taught at our universities.
Brian Tashman's blog

Phyllis Schlafly Calls on Conservatives to Imitate Legendary Textbook Censor Norma Gabler

Today Phyllis Schlafly hosted Guy Rodgers of ACT! for America on Eagle Forum Live where Rodgers discussed his anti-Muslim group’s new report arguing that children have been “indoctrinated in Islam” by textbooks. Rodgers called on parents to follow the example of famed right-wing activists Mel and Norma Gabler to pressure schools into rejecting textbooks the group claims have a “pro-Islam” bias. “We need another Norma Gabler,” Schlafly said.

Of course, the Gablers were notorious textbook censors who attacked the inclusion of evolution and anything they deemed part of the liberals’ “mental child abuse.” Diane Ravitch writes in The Language Police that the Gablers went after any textbooks they believed “taught ‘humanism,’ sex-education, ‘one-worldism,’ ‘women’s lib,’ or the occult” or promoted “a religion of secular humanism, in violation of the Constitution.”

While both of the Gablers have passed away, their group, Educational Research Analysts, was instrumental in crafting a successful Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) resolution condemning the “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias” that “has tainted some past Texas Social Studies textbooks.”

As the Texas Freedom Network points out, “the Gablers had prominent roles in the Texas textbook wars for decades before their deaths” and an Educational Research Analysts’ newsletter on the supposed anti-Christian bias in textbooks was released just one month before the state passed its September resolution. The newsletter blasted “both militant Islamic cultural jihadists (backed by Arab petrowealth in the U.S. textbook industry), and American academic secularists, in their com¬bined assault on Christianity in World History classes” and called on the SBOE to resist the “Allah-lobby,” while noting that “Christian conservative mastery of detail in Texas' textbook approval process is power”:

High school World History will thus fulfill the Texas Education Code's legislative intent better than U.S. History, whose new standards stress free-market benefits much less emphatically. The SBOE should now add that while U.S. History texts must stop ignoring Christianity, high school World History books must cease attacking it. In World History the SBOE should take action in the interna¬tional as well as the national culture war. It should check both militant Islamic cultural jihadists (backed by Arab petrowealth in the U.S. textbook industry), and American academic secularists, in their com¬bined assault on Christianity in World History classes.

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Many wrongly think Texas’ SBOE can reject only those textbooks that meet less than 50% of its course content standards, flunk certain manufacturing guidelines, or contain factual errors. But it can also dump those that clearly conflict with basic democratic values. For the first time ever the SBOE should invoke that power to warn publishers not to pander to Islam against Christianity – long a festering malaise (see the Manifesto within here) – in their new high school World History submissions.Christian conservative mastery of detail in Texas' textbook approval process is power … as vital to identify textbooks that so prostitute themselves, as it is to abort their local adoption statewide. Texas' elected SBOE is the one viable national democratic proven check and balance on textbook publishers' otherwise seemingly-unslakeable lust to kowtow to Allah-lobby conceits. All the oil money in Arabia cannot actually sell into American schools a book rejected by Texas' elected SBOE in response to documentation by knowledgeable citizen-voters
Brian Tashman's blog

Radical Right Rallies Behind Lowe's

As the backlash against Lowe’s decision to pull ads from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim grows, right-wing activists are rallying to the company’s defense.

Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America launched a petition to boost Lowe’s that ironically defends the right of businesses to “be free to make advertising decisions” even though Lowe’s withdrew their ads after a pressure campaign from the extremist Florida Family Association:

We the undersigned join to stand with Lowe's Home Improvement stores in their decision to cease the flow of their advertising dollars to The Learning Channel's (TLC) television show "All-American Muslim."

We believe that American businesses should be free to make advertising decisions without fear of repercussion from radical Islamist groups.

…

Therefore, we the undersigned, join with others across America, to let Lowe's Home Improvement know that:

• We support Lowe's Home Improvement's decision to end paid advertising on TLC's "All-American Muslim."

• We thank Lowe's Home Improvement for their position in the face of unwarranted and unfair criticism.

Religious Right radio host Janet Mefferd railed against the company’s critics on her show yesterday, where she hosted FFA president David Caton, arguing Lowe’s decision has absolutely nothing at all to do with anti-Muslim sentiments! According to Mefferd the show was plainly “controversial,” because apparently filming the lives of real Muslim families is controversial: “This has nothing to do with bigotry against Muslims, it has to do with the fact that the company didn’t want to advertise on this particular show because it was so controversial. So what! Get over it! Not everything is religious bigotry!”

The leader of the California Republican Assembly also defended Lowe’s in response to a California State Seantor Ted Lieu’s criticism of the company:

Lieu criticized the chain store, calling their action "un-American" and "naked religious bigotry," adding that he plans political action if the store does not apologize to Muslims and re-broadcast the ads.

Cathy Carlson of the California Republican Assembly points out Lowe's was just one of several companies that made the same decision. "Lowe's is a business -- and yes, it's the right business decision," she tells OneNewsNow. "And they're not the only ones -- there were dozens of advertisers who pulled their sponsorship."

…

"He is a lawyer -- and what he said to cover himself was that he was going to look into seeing if any laws have been broken; and he knows there aren't any laws that are broken," says Carlson. "So I just think he's posturing. I think he is playing to his base so he gets re-elected. This is typical California politics."
Brian Tashman's blog
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