At last, the full text of the “DHS memo”

In addition to Bret Baier and the producers of his Sunday morning program who recklessly declared a whacky e-mail from an anti-terror organization in Arizona to be a memo from the Department of Homeland Security and didn’t notice its obvious false statements (see previous entry), other guilty parties at Fox are Jennifer Griffin, who obtained the non-existent DHS memo and passed it on to her colleagues, and Greta van Susteren, who on Sunday morning uncritically posted the absurd “memo” as though it were all true and even repeated its main claims about an anti-Semitic motivation for shooting Gabrielle Giffords, because she was “the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government.” So van Susteren joins Baier in the ranks of the brainless.

As you will see, the memo is an undigested, stream-of-consciousness pile of half-formed, mutually unrelated thoughts, with no paragraph breaks separating different topics. If this is the way government official communicate with each other, no wonder no one noticed the patent falsity of its statements.

Here is van Susteren’s post along with the memo:

Latest on shooting of Congresswoman Giffords … motivation: anti Semitic and she was the target

Greta Van Susteren | January 9, 2011 8:11 AM

Below is a note from my FNC colleague Jennifer Griffin: (by the way, the fact that my blogs focus on Congresswoman Giffords in no way is meant to take away from the other victims and their families. The tragedy is immeasurable and words inadequate.)

——

Per Griffin

This is an internal memo obtained by Fox News put out by DHS compiling facts known so far about the case—new—shooter’s mother worked for Pima board of supervisers and the suspected anti-Semitic motivation of the shooter.

MEMO:

“The investigation has been taken over by the FBI, and is being run through the Tucson Command Post. Here’s what can be confirmed at this time (1800 hrs) … * Gabrielle Giffords Is in ICU.* Federal judge John Roll is deceased. He did rule on a 32 million dollar civil rights lawsuit in February, 2010. That ruling brought death threats to Roll and his family, and for a time he was given a protection detail.* 6 deaths attributed to the shooting. 19 total people hit by gunfire.* suspect’s mother works for the Pima County Board of Supervisors* the suspect has multiple arrests … But no criminal record? Intervention by someone?* no direct connection—but strong suspicion is being directed at AmRen / American Renaissance. Suspect is possibly linked to this group. (through videos posted on his myspace and YouTube account.). The group’s ideology is anti government, anti immigration, anti ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti Semitic. Gabrielle Gifford is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate.* DHS have a list of names and dates of birth of all victims.* the ACTIC is still playing a major role in the investigation … Computer forensics is cleaning up the surveillance videos, and images from around the scene, and involved in the investigation—working together, was MCSO, DPS, Phoenix PD, ICE, and of course the FBI. It did just come in from the command post, that the federal judge was Not originally scheduled to attend the meeting, according to wife. She stated that he received a phone call about an hour before and was invited to attend. Wrong place—wrong time. For the planning side, there are impromptu memorials popping up all over the state, but the largest one is downtown phoenix, at the capital.”

- end of initial entry -

Paul K., who alerted me to the van Susteren post, writes:

Greta van Susteren is the conduit through which the memo got onto Fox News in its misrepresented fashion.

The only other thing I discovered while poking around is that despite the initial imputation of an anti-Semitic motive, Loughner’s mother is reported to be Jewish (though there are Jewish anti-Semites, of course, like Bobby Fischer).

Though we repeatedly hear Gifford’s Jewishness stressed, only her father is Jewish. Her mother is a Christian Scientist, and the congresswoman married outside her faith. See this.

Gintas writes:

It’s hard for me to picture AR being important enough to be singled out like this. The vast majority of readers would go, “American Renaissance? Huh?” I saw someone suggest that someone sympathetic to AR at FOX or DHS cobbled the connection together to put AR in the spotlight. Any publicity is good publicity for fringe outfits like AR. Do you not think that if FOX highlighted VFR a large number of hits would be generated, and surely a few would be interested in what they see?

Ron L. writes:

I am stunned to read the DHS Memo. I cannot believe that it is real or that any journalistic organization would run it. Putting aside the lack of any evidence on a Loughner-AmRen relationship, it’s a joke. I half think it was an attempt to discredit Fox News.

The link between Loughner and American Renaissance supposedly comes from his youtube account. Except that if you look at it, nothing there relates to American Renaissance. And the claim about Gifford—“Gabrielle Gifford is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government”—is laughable. Jane Harmon, Nita Lowey, Shelley Berkley, Susan Davis, Jan Shakowsky, Allyson Schwatz, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz all outrank her. Giffords is the lowest ranking Jewish female Democrat in the 112th Congress in the House. Senators Feinstein and Boxer both seriously outrank her. Until she was shot, Giffords was a nobody, who had just “won” re-election with under 49% of the vote. Either the report was a joke to discredit Fox News, or the people at DHS are too incompetent to check committee assignments and Google people! Either way, Fox News is a joke for running this garbage without a minute of fact checking.

Imagine the scoop they could have had with some basic research. They could have shown the utter incompetence of Homeland Security in tracking percieved domestic terrorists. Instead they fell for the same leftist garbage as everyone else. To think so many people think they are a competent conservative news outlet or a balance to the mainstream.

LA replies:

Ron’s last observation is worth repeating:

Imagine the scoop they could have had with some basic research. They could have shown the utter incompetence of Homeland Security in tracking percieved domestic terrorists. Instead they fell for the same leftist garbage as everyone else.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 11, 2011 11:35 PM | Send