Speakers for the September 21, 2012 AIM Conference
(alphabetical order)
Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media. He has worked as a journalist, TV producer, director, writer and distributor. He also hosts AIM’s show on BlogTalkRadio, “Take AIM.” Roger joined AIM in May of 1997 and has written, produced and directed award-winning documentaries including Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope, The Clinton Legacy and TWA 800: The Search for the Truth. He wrote for the Jewish Herald Voice for more than 20 years. In 2008, Aronoff produced, directed and co-wrote an award-winning documentary that aired on many PBS stations called “Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neoconservatism.” In 2009 he produced a weekly public affairs show on PBS called “Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg.”
Richard Benedetto is a retired White House correspondent and columnist for USA Today and Gannett News Service. Mr. Benedetto reported on local, state, and national government and politics for nearly 40 years and continues to write political commentary for publications such as Politico. Benedetto is a founding member of USA Today, having joined in 1982. He wrote the national newspaper’s first Page One cover story. Benedetto covered the White House during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He has covered nearly every national political convention since 1972 and every presidential campaign since 1984. In 2006 he became an adjunct professor of Journalism at American University in Washington, D.C. Benedetto is also the author of the book, Politicians Are People, Too.
Deneen Borelli is the Outreach Director for FreedomWorks, and the author of Blacklash: How Obama and the Left are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation. Mrs. Borelli currently serves as a contributor on Fox News, and has also appeared on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC and C-SPAN. Her commentaries on the importance of freedom and limited government have been published by newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, and many others. She has also been a frequent speaker at political rallies and events, including the FreedomWorks 9.12 March on D.C. that drew a crowd estimated at over 800,000 people. Borelli served on the Board of Trustees with The Opportunity Charter School in Harlem, New York. Previously, she served as Manager of Media Relations with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In that capacity, Deneen was the Executive Producer and co-host on “The CORE Hour,” a weekly Internet radio talk show.
Pat Caddell worked for Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Gary Hart in 1984, Joe Biden in 1988, and Jerry Brown in 1992. Mr. Caddell is a regular guest on Fox News and is a Fox News contributor. He has also served as a consultant to various movies and television shows, most notably the movies “Running Mates,” “Air Force One,” “Outbreak,” “In the Line of Fire,” and the TV drama “The West Wing.” Most recently, he served as a consultant on the documentary, “The Hope and the Change.”
Jack Cashill is a writer and producer and has written for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, AmericanThinker.com and regularly for WorldNetDaily. Within the last decade, Cashill has written seven books, including Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America’s First Postmodern President. He has also produced a score of documentaries for regional PBS and national cable channels, including the Emmy Award-winning, The Royal Years. Cashill has a Ph.D. from Purdue University in American studies, has taught media and literature at Purdue and at Kansas City area universities, and served as a Fulbright professor in France.
Artur Davis is a former four-term Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama. Davis represented the Seventh District of Alabama as a Democrat from 2003 to 2010. He was viewed as a rising star in the House, assuming positions of influence including a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, and recruitment chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2008 election cycle. In 2008, Esquire Magazine named him one of the 10 Best Congressmen in America. In 2010, Davis was defeated in an upset in the Democratic primary in his bid to become the first black elected governor in the Deep South. He is now a columnist and commentator across a wide media spectrum. He’s a contributor to Politico’s Arena, the National Review Online, the blog The Recovering Politician and has appeared as a guest analyst on MSNBC, CNBC and the Fox Business Network. Davis, a 1990 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and a 1993 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, is an attorney in Washington, D.C. He previously served as a federal prosecutor with a near 100 percent trial-conviction record and as a partner at the law firm SNR Denton LLP.
John Fund is the National Affairs Columnist for National Review magazine and a frequent commentator on cable news networks, such as CNBC and Fox News. He has written on electoral irregularities for the Wall Street Journal and The New Republic.
He is the co-author of the book, Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk; and the author of the book, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. Fund joined the Wall Street Journal in 1984 as a deputy features editor and became an editorial page writer specializing in politics two years later. In 1995, he was named a member of the Journal’s editorial board, where he served until turning to the role of columnist on OpinionJournal.com. He worked as a reporter for the syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak. Mr. Fund attended California State University, where he studied journalism and science.
Frank Gaffney is the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., and is the host of Secure Freedom Radio, a nationally-syndicated radio program that addresses current and emerging threats to national security, sovereignty and American culture. Mr. Gaffney is the publisher and associate author of Shariah: The Threat to America, a report that provides a comprehensive “second opinion” on the official characterizations and assessments of the threat of political Islam as put forward by the U.S. government. Gaffney is a columnist for the Washington Times, TownHall.com and Newsmax. He is a contributor to Andrew Breitbart’s BigPeace.com and his columns are featured on WorldNetDaily. In April 1987, Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving nuclear forces, arms control and U.S.-European defense relations. From 1983 to 1987, he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy.
Bishop E. W. Jackson Sr. is the founder of Exodus Faith Ministries, a nondenominational ministry headquartered in Chesapeake, Va. Following three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he attended the University of Massachusetts, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in 1975. A 1978 graduate of Harvard Law School, he also studied theology at Harvard Divinity School. Bishop Jackson was host of a daily nationally syndicated program on Radio America. During his career in Boston, he practiced law for 15 years and started Boston’s first and only all-gospel radio station. In 1996, he left law practice and radio to lead the Samaritan Project, a national outreach and racial reconciliation effort which distributed $500,000 to churches victimized by arson. Bishop Jackson served five years both as a minister for the Boston Red Sox Chapel services and protestant Chaplain for the Boston Fire Department. He has taught Administrative Law at Northeastern University and business and commercial law at Strayer University in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Va. Bishop Jackson’s television appearances include CNN’s Talk Back Live, ABC’s Good Morning America, MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism. He has been associated with Accuracy in Media since 1978. A veteran journalist and media critic, he specializes in election coverage, the Fairness Doctrine, coverage of the U.N. and the financial bailouts. Mr. Kincaid is the author and co-author of several books, including The Death of Talk Radio? and Why You Can’t Trust the News. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post and Washington Times. A former guest-host on CNN’s Crossfire, Kincaid regularly appears on national television and radio programs.
Edward Klein is a writer and editor with a distinguished career in American journalism. He is the author of the recent book, The Amateur, which reveals many behind-the-scenes stories of the Obama White House, as well as the President’s relationship with Rev. Wright, Oprah Winfrey, Bill and Hillary Clinton, members of the Kennedy family, Valerie Jarrett, and others. Klein is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine; a former foreign editor of Newsweek; a former foreign correspondent for UPI; and former editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine. During his editorship, The New York Times Magazine won the first Pulitzer Prize in its history. Klein earned a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Andrew C. McCarthy is the author of the books, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy and The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America and Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. He is a former federal prosecutor and a Contributing Editor with National Review Online. He co-chairs the Center for Law and Counterterrorism, a joint project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the National Review Institute, where he also serves as a senior fellow. From 1993 to 1996, while an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, he led the prosecution against the jihad organization of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, in which a dozen Islamic militants were convicted of conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Mr. McCarthy also made major contributions to the prosecutions of the bombers of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the Millennium plot attack Los Angeles International Airport.
Betsy McCaughey is the founder and Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. As a health policy expert, she appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of the book, Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It, and has been featured on ABC?s 20/20, Nightline and Good Morning America; she has also had articles published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Three years ago, she launched a nationwide campaign to stop hospital infection by raising awareness for the public, lawmakers, caregivers, and administrators alike. McCaughey was the 72nd Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1995 to 1998, during the first term of Governor George Pataki. A historian by training, with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, she has provided commentary on healthcare policy. McCaughey was integral in exposing the truth about ObamaCare and the impact the legislation will have on patients, especially senior citizens. In 1993, her input on the Clinton healthcare plan was considered to be a major factor in the defeat of the bill, and brought her to the attention of Pataki, who then chose her as his Lieutenant Governor running mate.
John Merline, Senior Writer, Investor’s Business Daily. Previously, he was an opinion editor for AOL and AOL News, as well as the senior director for AOL. Merline was also the senior vice president at Robinson Lerer & Montgomery; and an editorial writer at USA TODAY, as well as a former Washington Bureau Chief and reporter at Investor’s Business Daily, and an editor for Consumers’ Research.
Katie Pavlich, the author of the New York Times best seller, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up arrived on the political scene in Washington, D.C. ready to challenge the status quo. As news editor for Townhall.com and a contributing editor to Townhall Magazine, Pavlich has focused attention on topics that many inside the beltway would rather forget or ignore such as illegal immigration, bias in education and the Second Amendment. As a reporter, she has been one of the leading investigative journalists breaking news on Fast and Furious. She has made numerous appearances as a commentator, including on Fox News, Fox Business, and MSNBC.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the founder and head of Congress’s Media Fairness Caucus and the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. In 2011, Congressman Smith was named Policymaker of the Year by Politico for his work on patent reform legislation. He is a former chairman of the House Ethics Committee, and currently serves on the Homeland Security Committee and the Committee of Science, Space and Technology.
You can view the complete schedule of speakers and topics here.