Political wind

9/11, Political wind

Two 9/11 family members run for Congress

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One candidate lost both parents and a second lost a brother on 9/11. Now, Marc Flagg and James Ogonowski are running for United States Congress.

First, the Palm Beach Post reports:

Flagg’s parents were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when their plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. Flagg, a Navy-trained pilot, became active in aviation security issues after the terrorist attacks and this month launched a 2008 Republican congressional bid that he says will stress national-security themes. Flagg, who lives west of Boca Raton, is the only Republican to announce a candidacy for the Palm Beach-Broward District 22 seat held by freshman U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.

“Prior to 9/11 I was quite happy being just a pilot. Nine-eleven changed everything. My loss of my parents inspired me to make a change and improve aviation security. … As a congressman representing the 22nd District, I will be able to help make our country better, safer, stronger,” Flagg said Monday outside the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where his first official event as a candidate drew one reporter.

Flagg, who now flies cargo planes for UPS, became active in pilot groups after 9/11 and in 2005 became president of a trade association called the Passenger-Cargo Security Group.
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While better-known Republicans have balked, Boca Raton GOP activist Jack Furnari says Flagg should not be counted out. “Marcus Flagg is a polished candidate with a compelling story, and he just might be the guy who can take Clay Shaw’s seat back,” Furnari said Monday.

And the Associated Press reports:

Air Force Lt. Col. James Ogonowski is the first Republican to announce his intention to run for the seat of Democrat Rep. Martin Meehan, who is leaving Congress to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Ogonowski’s brother, John, was one of 92 people killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001.

He said his brother’s death played a “significant part” in his decision to run for Congress. “We lost our innocence that day,” he said. “It’s something we should never allow to happen again.”

Ogonowski, 49, plans to retire from the Air Force next month after a 28-year career. He announced his candidacy at a memorial dedicated to his brother near the house where they grew up in Dracut, in northeast Massachusetts.

Ogonowski describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate.

10:21 PM EDT Update: No challengers so far for lt. col. in primary

The congressional campaign of Air Force Lt. Col. James Ogonowski, whose brother was the pilot of a plane flown into the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11 attacks, got a boost Thursday when two fellow Republicans announced they won’t run and will support him.

Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan and former NFL player Fred Smerlas announced they won’t enter the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., and said they’ll support Ogonowski, the only announced GOP candidate.

“I decided to stay full-time here in Lawrence,” Sullivan said, noting he had pledged to complete his second term as mayor. “We’re at a tremendous time where economic development is literally at an all-time high.”
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“I have faith in Jim. I believe in this guy,” Smerlas said, though he added he’s not met him in person.

If he’s unchallenged in the GOP primary, Ogonowski will be able to build and conserve funds for a showdown with the Democratic nominee. The seat has been held by a Democrat since the Nixon administration.

Islam vs. Islamists, Political wind

PBS’ Islamist Apologists Muzzle Muslim Moderates

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After the Center for Public Broadcasting spent $675,000 of taxpayers’ money for Martyn Burke to create ‘Islam vs. Islamists’, Washington’s PBS affiliate, WETA, led the effort to remove the documentary from the ‘America at a Crossroads’ series. WETA’s President and CEO is Sharon Percy Rockefeller, the wife of Senator John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. In a recent Human Events interview, Martyn Burke explained how WETA influenced PBS’ decision:

Q: A lot of people don’t realize that documentaries are not meant to be balanced and neutral — they always have a point of view. So what is the slant or agenda of “Islam vs. Islamists”?

A: One of the absolutely growing elements of hysteria from WETA within PBS was that we have a point of view. We said, “Of course we have a point of view.” Our point of view — based on the research, based on the reporting and the discussions with all these world-class reporters that we had engaged on this topic — was that there is a large community of moderates within the Muslim world who are afraid to speak up and we’re showing why. It’s because of the attacks of the Islamists.

What PBS/WETA attacked us on was they wanted us, in our opinion, to become virtually apologists for the Islamists, those who are the fundamentalists in this world. Basically, the attitude of this one small group — and again I have to say within WETA — was that the Muslims we were portraying as the moderates were in some way, in their view, not true Muslims because they were Westernized; they believed in democracy, which by the way the Islamists do not and will openly say that.

But they (the group within WETA) felt that the Islamists … somehow represented a truer strain of Islam. We said that is not the case as we have found it. And it became a sort of battle, with them saying to us, “Well, you control this. It is your film, but” – and it was a huge, capital-letter “But” – “if you do not do what we want, we will throw you out of the series.”

PBS apparently believes there are no real “moderate Muslims” in the U.S., just like there is no “Global War on Terror” according to Rockefeller’s party.

Liberal Washington power broker Anne Wexler is WETA’s Vice Chairman. Her USA*Engage team lobbies to stop, stall, and water down trade sanction legislation, such as with Iran. In 1998, the Wexler Group lobbied to de-fang legislation that imposed sanctions against nations that persecuted people for their religious beliefs.

Senator Rockefeller is a leading critic of the Patriot Act. His name appeared in the December 2005 New York Times article that revealed the classified NSA program that monitors communications in and out of the United States when one or more of the parties is suspected of having ties to terrorism. The left contends that both infringe upon free speech, people’s privacy, and the right to be protected from unreasonable searches. Conversely, his wife heads the PBS affiliate that silenced a documentary about moderate Muslims who spoke out against the Islamists and WETA’s Vice Chairman hinders legislation that attempts to end religious persecution abroad.

The canning of ‘Islam vs. Islamists’ probably does not signal a convergence of America’s vast, left-wing conspiracy with radical Islam. More likely, elite liberals think terrorism is manageable yet moderate Muslims are out of control and must be crushed.