Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 6: How the New Right Exploits the Media. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 12, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that six Baghdad-area churches were bombed within 24 hours on July 11-12, 2009, killing at least four people and wounding 32. Iraq has lost more than half of the 1.4 million Christians who once called it home, mostly since the war began in 2003, and few who fled have plans to return.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 3: The Tea Party Movement. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 9, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that declassified notes of FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein in 2004 proved Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003, but that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had WMD because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 2: A Deep Dislike for Barack Obama. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 8, 2009 Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews” — Part 1: Don’t Tread on Me. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on July 7, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that seven U.S. troops died in three attacks in Afghanistan, on the same day that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, issued new guidelines limiting the use of airstrikes against residential compounds and other locations likely to produce civilian casualties, alienating Afghan villagers and causing loss of support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: The growing fear among some citizens of losing their rights and freedoms has created a political backlash toward the U.S. government and manifested itself in violent rhetoric and anti-government groups who want to “take their country back.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews takes a hard look at the recent surge of anger on the political right in “Rise of the New Right: A Hardball Documentary with Chris Matthews.” In this blog entry, Aubrey Immelman chronicles the rise of rightwing extremism in America following the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 16, 2009 Aubrey Immelman reported that North Korea threatened a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” if provoked by the U.S., but that U.S. officials were downplaying any imminent threat to the United States of a North Korean missile strike or confrontation between the two countries at sea.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Microsoft Network (MSN.com), promoting its new Bing! search engine, recently featured a demo search of “angry Americans.” It caught my attention, because history has shown that times of economic uncertainty — as we’re currently experiencing while bogged down in two wars in the aftermath of 9/11 — can be a fertile breeding ground for extremist ideologies, as we saw in Germany during the Great Depression following a humiliating defeat in World War I. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 13th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that he had launched a ground assault, with campaign ads running in 25 newspapers with a combined circulation of approximately 150,000.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has released two messages to convince Muslims they should hate President Barack Obama, in a PR offensive that analysts said shows the terrorist organization worries the new president will succeed in improving America’s image in the Muslim world and undermine the group’s jihad, or holy war. … “The Personality Profile of Al-Qaida Leader Osama Bin Laden” by Aubrey Immelman, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics.

  ::  Read Comments (0)

Summary: Al-Qaida’s deputy leader on June 2, 2009 criticized President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, saying it would not change the “bloody messages” the U.S. military is sending Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world.

  ::  Read Comments (0)