Fox News 'terror expert' says everyone in Birmingham is a Muslim

[starroute]

9. Steve Emerson has been a progandist for Israel since Iran-Contra

And in recent years, he's been making a nice living as an anti-terrorism "expert."

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Emerson_Steven

Steve Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, is an author and media pundit who has made a career of issuing warnings about purported terrorist threats to the United States and the West. A former freelance journalist, Emerson emerged as a terrorism "expert" in the 1990s when he began writing alarming pieces about the purported activities of Islamic terrorists operating on American soil.

Although he has been repeatedly criticized for producing faulty analyses and having a distinctly anti-Islamic agenda, Emerson is a frequent guest commentator on FoxNews, MSNBC, and other news programs, and he is often invited to give testimony to Congress. His work has also been lauded by a number of public figures. . . .

Since the 9/11 attacks and the onset of the "war on terror," Emerson has played a key role in promoting what some observers describe as "Islamophobic" rhetoric, arguing that civil rights groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) are terrorists sympathizers and that liberals like President Barack Obama coddle Middle East terrorists.


http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/31/308537/steve-emerson-investigative-project/

Steven Emerson directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a group dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamist infiltration in America through investigative journalism. But his career, as discussed in CAP’s new report “Fear, Inc.,” is marked by shoddy reporting and suspicious financial arrangements between private companies, in some cases listing him as the sole employee, and the nonprofit foundations which collect tax-exempt contributions to support his work. . . .

But Emerson’s supposed expertise in researching terrorist networks have frequently been questioned due to his propensity for making false accusations against Muslims and his sloppy approach to investigative reporting. Most notably, in 1995, Emerson claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing showed “a Middle East trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.” And in 1998, Emerson was tied to a false report that Pakistan was planning a nuclear first strike on India.

Emerson’s weak credibility hasn’t stopped him from building a mini-empire from his offices at the well-funded IPT. But his penchant for secrecy — his office location is secret, employees refer to it as “the bat cave,” and journalists who visit it have been blindfolded en route — has raised serious questions about management of IPT’s finances. . . .

IPT donors include: the Donors Capital Fund ($400,000) . . .


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos

Working out of an nondescript brick rowhouse in suburban Virginia, a little-known organization named Donors Trust, staffed by five employees, has steered hundreds of millions of dollars to the most influential think tanks, foundations, and advocacy groups in the conservative movement. Over the past decade, it has funded the right's assault on labor unions, climate scientists, public schools, economic regulations, and the very premise of activist government. Yet unlike its nearest counterpart on the progressive side, the Tides Foundation, a bogeyman of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, Donors Trust has mostly avoided any real scrutiny. It is the dark-money ATM of the right.

Founded in 1999, Donors Trust (and an affiliated group, Donors Capital Fund) has raised north of $500 million and doled out $400 million to more than 1,000 conservative and libertarian groups, according to Whitney Ball, the group's CEO. Donors Trust allows wealthy contributors who want to donate millions to the most important causes on the right to do so anonymously, essentially scrubbing the identity of those underwriting conservative and libertarian organizations. Wisconsin's 2011 assault on collective bargaining rights? Donors Trust helped fund that. ALEC, the conservative bill mill? Donors Trust supports it. The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute? They get Donors Trust money, too.