Pastor Hagee's Media Supression Scandal Threatens To Splash Embattled Lieberman

Early in July, producers of 120+ videos were informed, as reported by Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, that their videos had been removed from the YouTube website for alleged copyright infringement, for containing John Hagee sermon video footage. With the immanent kickoff of Pastor John Hagee's 2008 Christians United For Israel summit, at which Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman is due to deliver a July 22nd capstone speech, the prevailing assumption is that Pastor Hagee and his ministry launched preemptive attacks against YouTube videos critical of his ministry in order to temporarily repress the critical reports during mainstream media coverage of CUFI 2008 expected to ensue in little more than a week.

But, Hagee's media suppression bid appears to be backfiring. Will the growing scandal splash on the already embattled Senator Joseph Lieberman, currently scheduled to speak on July 22nd at Hagee's CUFI 2008 Washington DC conference ? How close can Senator Lieberman sidle up to Hagee, who seems to be claiming, under his 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit, copyright protection for a Hagee sermon, broadcast around the world, in which Pastor John Hagee proposed that a "satanic" Jewish banking cabal plots to attack American patriotism and wreck the US economy by devaluing the dollar ? How long can Lieberman continue to stand by his comparison of John Hagee, to "Moses" ? [below: 10 minute documentary compares Pastor John Hagee's very own version, circa March 2003, of "The Protocols" with the Nazi version, as detailed in the infamous Joseph Goebbels-supervised Nazi propaganda film "The Eternal Jew"]

Pastor Hagee's strong-arm media tactics seem to be wildly backfiring, in a growing PR disaster for Hagee, especially for the fact that JHM's claims to copyright for Hagee's sermons appear to extend to a claim that Hagee's worldwide dissemination of a close variant of the Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of Zion anti-Jewish conspiracy theory represents a valid 501(c)(3) educational enterprise worthy of strict copyright protection. This latest recrudescence of the apparently rolling scandal Hagee generates almost reflexively comes just as Lieberman's appearance at Hagee's CUFI 2008 appearance draws close and just as a coalition of progress activists has delivered a 43,000-plus signature petition, to the US Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, calling on the Committee to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship and rank in the caucus.

[Note: Fortunately for Lieberman, Hagee and his ministry has had the wisdom to pull three allegedly fraudulent "ex-terrorists," scheduled for a panel immediately prior to Lieberman's planned appearance, from the CUFI 2008 schedule.]

One of the suppressed YouTube videos at the center of the Hagee media suppression scandal, as it happens, was Max Blumenthal's and Thomas Shomaker's "Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christian United For Israel 2007 Tour," which the two shot at CUFI 2007 and co-produced. Thus, Blumenthal and Shomaker had exclusive copyright to their video and the John Hagee Ministries claim, filed with YouTube against the documentary, verges towards, if not over the line into, outright fraud, a legal reality which Blumenthal has apparently used to pry, from one of JHM's lawyers, details of the John Hagee Ministries conspiracy to suppress critical media coverage in advance of CUFI 2008. [below, two videos suppressed by John Hagee & JHM MInistries: "Rapture Ready," by Max Blumenthal and Thomas Shomaker, seen by upwards of 300,000 viewers (but perhaps many more than that) and a variant of the "God Sent Hitler" video, broadcast widely in the US and internationally, that led to John McCain's renunciation of Pastor John Hagee's political endorsement. Original Bruce Wilson versions were suppressed by Hagee/JHM but a copy, posted by The Young Turks remians up on YouTube's website]

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[below: the Young Turks' re-post of the "God Sent Hitler" video, still up on YouTube]

This new Hagee scandal comes as Pastor John Hagee is coming under greater scrutiny from Jewish groups and Senator Joseph Lieberman is coming under increasing fire, both for his absurdly hyperbolic claims of an "existential" threat from Iran against both Israel and The United States and for his tenuous commitment to the Democratic Party. This Wednesday at 11 AM, as noted on the New York Times political blog, a group calling itself lieberman must go "plan to deliver a petition with about 43,100 signatures to the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, telling the leadership to strip him of his committee chairmanship and rank in the caucus." There is some evidence, on the Hagee/CUFI side of the equation, that media scrutiny, at least on Lieberman's association with dubious and controversial elements associated with the Christian right, is starting to pay off. As noted by academic and blogger Richard Bartholomew, a CUFI 2008 panel that was scheduled for the time slot immediately preceding Joseph Lieberman's currently scheduled CUFI 2008 address and which was to feature three alleged "ex-Islamic terrorists" whose alleged terrorist backgrounds have been widely challenged as fraudulent, by terrorism experts and even by their own relatives, appears to have been dropped from the CUFI 2008 events schedule.

Because the use of video and audio footage from Pastor John Hagee has been crucial, notes Max Blumenthal, in convincing mainstream media, which had long ignored alternative media journalistic coverage of Pastor Hagee's ideological extremity and agitation for apocalyptic war, to finally give Hagee's growing mainstream presence some belated coverage. As late as March 2007 when Hagee was invited to give a keynote address at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual Washington DC conference, routinely attended by a large proportion of the US Congress, critical coverage of the apocalyptic, often anti-Muslim and at times viciously anti-Jewish nature of Pastor John Hagee's sermons was something AIPAC and mainstream media seemed willing to ignore despite the fact that Hagee's sermons, which have included versions of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories remarkably similar to the Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion even to the extent of mirroring the claim, put out by an early "Protocols" publicist, the Russian Orthodox priest Sergei Nilus, that the anti-Christ will be Jewish, routinely go out on broadcast networks that reach upwards of 100 million households around the globe.

Regardless of its technical legal merits, the claim of John Hagee Ministries, to copyright protection for Hagee's internationally telecast church sermons that often feature content wholly unrelated to Biblical scripture, amounts to a claim, by JHM, that its broadcasts of Hagee's anti-Jewish rhetoric and even Hagee's proposal of a version of the anti-Jewish "Protocols" myth, should enjoy copyright protection as a legitimate 501(c)(3) educational enterprise. Such a claim would seem to raise the question then, what could JHM Ministries educational mission conceivably be ? Does JHM's 501(c)(3) educational mission statement include a mandate to promote anti-Jewish conspiracy theories ? [below: 10 minute documentary explores Senator Joe Lieberman's comparison of Pastor John Hagee to Moses]

Related: "Hagee's Revenge? Videos of Controversial Pastor Removed From YouTube" -- Sam Stein

Comments

[ihavenobias]

That Young Turks clip is great!

[knowhelpnow]

If any of these people that believe what these so called pastor's say; would look at his sayings they would put 2+2 together and know it doesn't make any sense.
I know one of his devotes and you can not reason with them if you back them into a corner with their illogical beliefs (even if you start with the belief that the Bible is the true words of God) they will not budge in what they believe or even question it. It's hard to believe that so many people want to die, they really want the end to come, they are so counting on the rapture that they will try start ww3 to bring it about.
I've heard them say they want God to take them now to his kingdom, I believe their lives are so full of disappointment and grief they hold on to these people like a life vest in a sea of hurt.

[whitenoise007]

This is not Christianity! This is a CULT. By Christian standards a christian cult is a sect that take a passage(s) out of the Bible, distorts and perverts it and the central message of the Bible to fit their claims. It amazes me that any believer can listen to this man and think that they are getting the word of God. Hagee even admits there is no Biblical basis for one of his key claims. However, beyond the disappointment that so many who profess faith follow this garbage, is the fact that this is sold in the media as Christianity. It's not! Even the most conservative literal readers of the Bible, men and women who know the book, its history, its context, will dismantle these perverted claims about rapture, etc., and call it what it is: heresy.

This cult claims that our efforts must hasten the end-times; this is directly counter to the Bible. They are investing in this world and its politics, in themselves, not in Christ and their faith in Him. The Bible is clear from cover to cover what THAT is. The sad part is that so many followers of these bastards don't read the Bible; they simply believe what they are told about select passages. The Bible has historical, biblical and theological context that these men have completed perverted.

Finally, for those who think history is bunk, the idea of the New World Order was coined by George H.W. Bush.

[portwes]

As an ex-missionary with a Bachelor of Theology from a well-known Bible college, I beg to differ:

The evangelical world is RIDDLED with this kind of sensational sort of exegesis and biblical interpretation. It is mainly American in origin, and picked up by the evangelical world in other countries such as Great Britain. The "Emergent" church has attempted to distance itself from this distorted theology, but still holds to the "born-again" basics.

I could no longer stomach this culture, and after 40 years as a "born-again" Christian, I turned in my membership card, and the only thing I can say with certainty right now, is that Jesus' teachings were, and are, revolutionary, and a damn good philosophy to live your life by.

If you stay in the evangelical world, you will ALWAYS have to co-exist with the Hagees and Dobsons and Rod Parsley. You only deceive yourself if you think it's going to be any other way!

[AmeriGus]

There is also a ten-term Congressman from NY by the name of Eliot Engel who is scheduled to speak at the June 22 CUFI conference right after Bill Kristol. Though he is listed as a Democrat, Engel's recent record has been appalling, joining Bush's full court press for the unpopular Columbian trade deal and fighting Reid and Pelosi to rewrite war appropriation bills so Bush can retain the right to attack Iran without Congressional approval.

Engel favors these pre-emptive strikes against Iran, retroactive telecom immunity, and has invited radical right-wing Israeli wonks to address the committees he chairs where they lobbied for expulsion of all Palestinians from Israel instead of peace talks.

Though he is staunchly pro-Israel, Engel makes a bizarre contradiction speaking for Hagee for the third year in a row, because Hagee and his supporters believe all Jews will be annihilated any day and seem to be trying to bring this out by provoking it's enemies.

[lovethesinner]

Just a suggestion, Bruce, but... get a writer to help you focus this material. You've got some great info, but no thread. The story of Hagee and Lieberman is almost as confusing as they are. I know you are writing about really crazy people but I can't really tell what's going on in your post. (No disrespect)

And I have a feeling we need to know about these guys. You're right, Hagee is basically spewing the Protocols of Zion. It's pretty disturbing, if you ask me.

Have you put any of this together with that stuff about The Family? (the Washington Prayer Breakfast cult)

Good luck, I think you're on to something.

[nikto]

Lieberman quit the Human Race a long time ago.

He realized: Invertebrates have all the fun!

[cultkicker]

Even though Hagee is a certifiable nut case, I have to agree with this statement " Pastor John Hagee proposed that a "satanic" Jewish banking cabal plots to attack American patriotism and wreck the US economy by devaluing the dollar ?" He is right, and Paul Wolfowitz is perfectly aware of it too.

[Lemurfly]

Really? I was born Jewish, brissed and Bar Mitzvahed, but not once was I ever instructed in the ways of this "Cabal." Why was I excluded? It's just infuriating to be part of a group that supposedly runs the world. and still be poor as a dog. Mr. Wolfowitz, where is my membership card? And Mr. Cultkicker, I'm afraid you've kicked nothing but your own ignorant ass for subscribing to this medieval nonsense.

[ramara]

Lieberman is getting scary. I wish I had known about the petition in time ot sign it. I would start a petition for excommunication if I could.

[Sciguy]

I believe they're still accepting signatures. There are signatures from just a few minutes ago, on 10 July 2008.

[Puller58]

The whole point to all this is that they want to have it their way. Espouse their tripe but keep the MSM at bay. Since it has such enomous complications for our foreign policy and our economic future, Lieberman's relationship with Hagee is ultra important. Those who wish to excuse him are being cynical.

[frjohnwhiteford]

I think many of Hagee's beliefs about the end times are pretty nutty, but they are his beliefs, shared by many dispensationalist protestants. It is disingenuous to try to link his beliefs with the protocols of zion, or with antisemitism. Not only is he not an anti-semite -- he is a Christian Zionist, who thinks that if America does not support Israel to the hilt that God will judge us for it.

In the interest of fairness, one should try to accurate represent the views of those with whom they disagree, but then why should the left start now?

[MajorKong]

I would say that he supports the Jews only so long as they play their part in his end-times scenario.

[SadButWiser]

Priceless videos. I would be extremely worried if I had been a Jew. There is nothing more scary than being supported by crazy zealots.

[Charliej]

Back on the north side of San Antonio (home of JHM) ...

The U.S. Air Force bases, AF Cryptologic Systems Group, AF Intelligence, etc. continue to be filled with Crypto-Christians at the highest levels, supported by business, religious and social leaders. And they confidently call for attacking Iran, knowing that the bucolic suburbs of Texas are far from where their bombs will fall.

While Hagee can spout off all that he likes, having the U.S. war machine under the control of these "ChristoFascist" is more worrisome.

[speakingtruth2power]

The Dow is heading below 11,000 and oil for above 150, thanks to the neocon's

ChristoFascist conspiracy to create a "New America" through social devolution!!

Meanwhile, the majority of Americans ( 80%+) know, this is the wrong direction!

[MissKaren]

Anything that splashes Lieberman is fine with me. If he wants to get naked and get into bed with someone who thinks God sent Hitler, fine with me but don't ask me to respect him the next day.