Fred Fleitz

<div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=55ae5418b1&e=8710facb33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold;">Tomgram: Arnold Isaacs, Promoting Islamophobia in America</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Honestly, if you’re trying to grasp our strange new world, this <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=b129b7c0b5&e=8710facb33"><em>Washington Post </em>headline</a> gets you at least part of the way there: "New NSC Chief of Staff Is From Group That Believes Muslims Are Plotting to Take Over U.S." No, that NSC isn’t the National Student Clearinghouse or the Norfolk Southern Corporation or the National Sports Center. It’s the National Security Council, the outfit that advises the president on, well, national security, and that happens to be headed by new National Security Advisor John Bolton, a man who never saw a country he <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=495f6a33ca&e=8710facb33">couldn’t</a> imagine <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=ca695f52a0&e=8710facb33">bombing</a>. Now, as its Bolton-appointed chief of staff, it has a genuine Islamophobic <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=e9e2838c31&e=8710facb33">crackpot</a> by the name of Fred Fleitz. He previously was vice president for policy at Frank Gaffney’s <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=8741aa538f&e=8710facb33">Center for Security Policy</a>, an outfit that, as the <em>Post </em>puts it, "propagates the conspiracy theory that Islamists have infiltrated the U.S. government in a plot to take over the country" (and that’s barely to crack the surface of its mania about Islam). 

By the way, you remember that flap about Roseanne Barr calling former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett a spawn of the Planet of the Apes, right? If not, it’s not your fault. Since that controversy exploded across the Twitternet ("Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes = VJ"), our president has been <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=0edf2c1eaa&e=8710facb33">transforming himself</a> into King George III, claiming unprecedented powers over this country and, if he has his way, the world, while there have been so many other <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=9c7a372da6&e=8710facb33">manic explosions</a> in our media world that it’s mindboggling. On such a planet, attention spans are understandably short. Nonetheless, it might be worth revisiting the Barr controversy briefly, in light of the Fleitz appointment, since the racist comparison of Jarrett, an African American woman, to an ape proved explosive, yet the other half of Barr’s insulting equation ("Muslim Brotherhood") was barely noticed. 

As the invaluable Juan Cole <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=3967220036&e=8710facb33">writes</a> at <em>Informed Comment</em>, however, Barr seems to have picked up much of her Jarrett slam from Gaffney and Fleitz’s center, which has worked hard to “single out Jarrett as a baleful influence on Obama and... connect her to Iran [where she was indeed born], and then implicitly to the Muslim Brotherhood. (Only, the Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Muslim organization and Iran is Shiite).” Oh yes, and Jarrett isn’t Muslim. 

Well, small points indeed in an American world where wearing the label Islamophobe seems to disqualify you from nothing -- certainly not the presidency or becoming <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=edf7d6aa02&e=8710facb33">secretary of state</a> or, for that matter, chief of staff of the NSC. It's no longer a problem at all, as <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=5e009913b7&e=8710facb33"><em>TomDispatch </em>regular</a> Arnold Isaacs makes all too clear today. <em>Tom</em></font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Giving a Pass to Anti-Muslim Bigotry</strong>
<strong>Islamophobia Enters the Government, Is Incorporated into the Law, and Becomes Increasingly Acceptable in America</strong>
By <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=3da9e1eaf8&e=8710facb33">Arnold R. Isaacs</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Imagine that a nominee for secretary of state had shared platforms with white nationalist Richard B. Spencer and been given a major award by his National Policy Institute, which <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=2d391b58d4&e=8710facb33">describes itself</a> as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world." With that on his record, is it likely the nominee would have been confirmed, or nominated in the first place, to head the State Department?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Or what if someone under consideration for a top White House job had written an admiring foreword for a book by Holocaust denier <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=6db4abc024&e=8710facb33">David Irving</a> or perhaps one by the psychologist and alt-right sympathizer Kevin MacDonald, who describes Jews as "<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=4cdbd25de8&e=8710facb33">a hostile, adversary elite</a>” conducting "ethnic war" against Christianity and "traditional institutions of European-American culture"? Would such an endorsement keep him from being named as the president's national security advisor?</font></p><p><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=6bbf1e524e&e=8710facb33"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Click here to read more of this dispatch.</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176434/tomgram%3A_arnold_isaacs%2C_promoting_islamophobia_in_america">http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176434/tomgram%3A_arnold_isaacs%2C_promoting_islamophobia_in_america</a></font></p></blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bolton-pick-nsc-cos-vp-of-hate-group">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bolton-pick-nsc-cos-vp-of-hate-group</a></div><div>
</div><div>N<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px">ational Security Adviser John Bolton’s new pick to be the National Security Council chief of staff has served for the last five years as the Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the Frank Gaffney-founded Center for Security Policy, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that espouses anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. </span></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Gaffney and the group have for years promoted anti-Muslim beliefs, including accusing government officials of being aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.</span></p><div class="code-block code-block-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" auto="auto" text-align="text-align" center="center" clear="clear" both="both"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: -38px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Center for Security Policy’s website features a </span><a href="https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2018/05/29/bolton-adds-loyalists-to-national-security-council-staff/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">congratulatory post</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> published Tuesday, confirming Fred Fleitz’s tenure.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Center for Security Policy alumnus Fred Fleitz has been named Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council under John Bolton,” it reads. “Fleitz served as the Center’s Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs from 2013-2018.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to the </span><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/center-security-policy" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Southern Poverty Law Center</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, the group was founded Gaffney, a former Reagan official, in 1988 and has morphed from a “hawkish think tank” to a “conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States.” CSP has also reportedly been banned from CPAC. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-29/bolton-adds-loyalists-to-national-security-council-staff" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Per a Tuesday Bloomberg report</a>, Fleitz worked as Bolton’s chief of staff while he was an undersecretary of state for former President George W. Bush.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: " noto="Noto" serif="serif" georgia="Georgia" droid="Droid" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fleitz is also a former CIA analyst and frequent guest on Fox News.</span></p><div>===</div></div></div></div>