State Department Withdraws Anti-Terror Ad After Pressure From ACLU, CAIR, SEIU, Others

    The State Department yielded to pressure from a coalition of Seattle and Washington State politicians, community groups, and advocacy organizations and agreed to withdraw at least one ad in the department's Metro bus ad campaign in Seattle promoting the “Rewards for Justice” campaign. The program pays rewards to individuals who provides leads about the location of wanted terrorists.
    Congressman Jim McDermott, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, and King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski joined forces with others in the community, as well as organizations like the ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), to raise concerns about the ads.  Mayor McGinn reported at least some success in their efforts [emphasis added]:

[Arsalan] Bukhari [of the Council on American-Islamic Relations] worked with the ACLU of Washington State to convene a meeting that included Magdaleno Rose-Avila and Sahar Fathi of our Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs. After a productive meeting, the lead investigator for the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” program, Tim Corso, acknowledged our concerns with the ad that featured the language “Global Faces of Terrorism” along with photos of men from the Philippines, Somalia, Russia, Sudan and Algeria. He has agreed to take down this particular ad and to work with community advocates in doing outreach in Seattle going forward.

    Mayor McGinn expressed optimism that Seattle's opposition would make a difference elsewhere as "Seattle is the first city to receive these ads and the recommendations provided by the community will drive how the program is implemented in other cities across the country."  In addition to the ACLU and CAIR, the mayor credited a long list of organizations who participated in the efforts which also included the Service Employees International Union:

This was made possible through the collaborative work by the many community advocates who came together on this issue: in particular (and in no specific order), the American Civil Liberties Union – Washington, Council on American-Islamic Relations (Washington Chapter), Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, Office of King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, Office of Congressman Jim McDermott,  Minority Executive Directors Coalition, Mothers for Police Accountability, the Seattle Human Rights Commission, Consejo Counseling and Referral Service, SEIU Healthcare 775NW, Asian Counseling and Referral Service, the Northwest Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Faith Action Network (Seattle).

Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

The Obama Campaign Blog: Is This "Story of Recovery" Fact or Fiction? - Part 3

Note: This is Part 3 of a post that was published on Wednesday, July 25th.

    Much of my coverage of the BarackObama.com blog's Story of Recovery of Joseph Nicolas's business has focused on the subject of the posting, Joseph Nicolas.  However, I did report some background of the writer of the post as well, the recent high school graduate Austin Wright-Pettibone.  As it turns out, the day before I published my first story on Nicolas, Wright-Pettibone (left, in photo) was among those greeting President Obama as he arrived in Seattle, WA, on July 24, 2012, for a couple of fund raising events (via AP photos at Daylife.com.)

Wright-Pettibone has a similar image on his Facebook account:

Wright-Pettibone's participation in the greeting event was noted by a friend of his on the Facebook page of Washington United for Marriage:

My friend, Austin Wright-Pettibone, is set to greet President Obama when he arrives in Air Force One today! LUCKY him!! sweet....       July 24 at 12:54pm 

    Although I still have no evidence to suggest Wright-Pettibone knew of Joseph Nicolas's background or the inconsistencies in his story when the blog post was written, his apparently increasing profile in the Obama campaign, at least on a local level in Seattle, will only serve to magnify the impact if Nicolas's tale turns out to be false.  And while I say there's no evidence Wright-Pettibone knew Nicolas's background, Nicolas, as Ariel Anatole, is one of only 37 followers of Wright-Pettibone's Twitter account, so it seems unlikely Wright-Pettibone is entirely unaware of Nicolas's alias.  [Note: For full disclosure, as you might notice if you clicked on the link,  I am following Wright-Pettibone on Twitter as part of my effort to get additional information about this story.]  If Wright-Pettibone or anyone from the Obama campaign responds to my emails or these blog posts, I will follow up and post the additional information.

Part 4 is now posted here.