In its frenzy to destroy President-elect Trump, the bought-and-paid-for establishment propaganda media is now lying openly and outright, smearing Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, as a white supremacist and anti-Semite. But even though the self-appointed arbiters of acceptable opinion have been screaming their lies about Bannon everywhere for several days now, Trump shows no sign of bowing to their will and firing Bannon. So now Huffington Post smear artist Christopher Mathias has tried another tack, attempting to destroy Bannon by association with foes of jihad terror: Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney, and me.
The HuffPo should seriously consider docking Mathias’ pay, as this particular hit piece is extremely lazy work. For the most part, he simply repeats Southern Poverty Law Center talking points to which I responded point-by-point here. The only charge he adds in that the SPLC doesn’t include is the hoary old falsehood that I inspired Norwegian psychopath Anders Breivik to commit mass murder; you can find the truth about that here (scroll down).
The point of this piece is to intimidate Bannon and/or Trump into not daring to have any dealing with the likes of us, but to continue the Obama administration policy of entrusting counterterror operations to collaborators, fellow travelers, infiltrators, dunces, and useful idiots. It manifests the Huffington Post’s deep and growing anxiety as its editors and writers slowly begin to realize that Trump and Bannon are unlikely to succumb to this kind of pressure.
Mathias’ hit piece includes this: “Asked what he thinks it’s important for Bannon to know as he begins his new role in the White House, Spencer said he would tell Bannon ‘that forces such as the Huffington Post and its allies will stop at nothing to discredit and destroy him.'” Mathias’ lack of any capacity for self-reflection is embarrassing: his article here is a compelling illustration of the truth of what I said.
“The Anti-Muslim Extremists Steve Bannon Thinks Are Experts On Islam,” by Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, November 15, 2016:
Steve Bannon, whom President-elect Donald Trump chose this week as his chief strategist and senior counselor, has a history of claiming that certain anti-Muslim extremists are in fact experts on Islam.
Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News ― a site that regularly airs white nationalist viewpoints ― used to host a Sirius XM radio show called “Breitbart News Daily.” According to a September report from Mother Jones and the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund, Bannon conducted dozens of interviews with anti-Muslim extremists on the show in the past year. These guests offered paranoid accusations and false conspiracy theories about Muslims, all of which went unchallenged by Bannon.
During these interviews, Bannon often praised his guests as esteemed experts on a religion they hate….
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer, who runs the anti-Muslim website Jihad Watch and co-founded the American Freedom Defense Initiative with Geller, appeared on Bannon’s show twice. Bannon called Spencer “one of the top two or three experts in the world on this great war we are fighting against fundamental Islam.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, on the other hand, says Spencer “is entirely self-taught in the study of Islam, he has partnered with a woman [Geller] known as one of the least reasoned enemies of Islam in the country, and he is given to the same kinds of extravagant, and often provably false, claims that characterize most Muslim-bashers.”
Spencer once wrote that “traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”
Last year he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that a “core principle” of Islam is “the idea of emigrating to a new place to conquer and Islamize it, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing.” He added that “Shariah enclaves” will “inevitably grow and continue to grow until, finally, that’s all there is.”
He once said that freedom of religion doesn’t necessarily apply to Islam because Islam “impinges upon our freedoms.”
He once said it’s “absurd” to think of Islam as “a religion of peace that’s been hijacked by a tiny minority.”
And he once asserted that “80% of the mosques in the United States are actually controlled by extremists.”
Spencer’s writings were cited 162 times by Breivik, the Norwegian anti-Muslim terrorist.
Reached for comment, Spencer said he’d be “happy to be of service” to Bannon in the White House, and said the SPLC’s characterization of him as belonging to a hate group was “base calumny and malicious defamation.”
“All my work is in defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law,” Spencer wrote in an email. “The SPLC is the real hate group, smearing and defaming those whose views differ from their hard-Left line, and endangering our lives by providing a hit list to genuine ‘extremists.’”
He also rejected the SPLC’s description of him as an “extremist,” saying it’s a word used to refer to terrorists.
“I have not… ever beheaded anyone, flown a plane into a building, called for any violence, or approved of any violence against innocent people,” he said. “The SPLC is simply a propaganda organ to discredit the foes of its well-heeled benefactors.”
Asked what he thinks it’s important for Bannon to know as he begins his new role in the White House, Spencer said he would tell Bannon “that forces such as the Huffington Post and its allies will stop at nothing to discredit and destroy him.”
“They’ve shown already by smearing him as a white supremacist and an anti-Semite that they will stoop to any lie, fabricate any charge, no matter how outlandish, in their mad quest to destroy any and all opposition to the policies they favor,” he said….