The Lies Just Keep Coming From Joseph Farah's Mouth Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah just can'tstop lying, can he? Apparently not, since now he's down to recycling his old lies.
In his Aug. 8 WorldNetDaily column, Farah claims that former White House communications director Anita Dunn "fawn[s] over the greatest mass murderer in history, Mao Zedong. (She calls him one of her two 'favorite political philosophers.')"
As we pointed out when he made this same claim two months ago, Farah is deliberately taking Dunn out of context, Dunn actually said that Mao, along with Mother Teresa, were "two of my favorite political philosophers ... that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices."
Apparently, Farah thinks that lying is a good business model for a "news" website.
MRC's Baker Whines: Media Won't Report That Record July Heat Is Just Barely A Record Topic: NewsBusters
Brent Baker sums up his whining in the headline of his Aug. 9 NewsBusters post: "NBC Hypes July as ‘Hottest Month Ever’ – Doesn’t Bother to Mention It Was Barely Hotter Than 1936."
Yes, Baker is really complaining about that. He expands a little in his post:
So, all of NBC’s excitement came from temperatures 0.2 tenths of a degree hotter than before the widespread industrialization blamed for global warming and before the widespread development which causes heat islands that mean temperature stations which used to be in isolated areas are sitting next to pavement and buildings.
The heat of 1936 came during a drought that lasted much of the 1930s and contributed to the dust storms the ravaged the plains. By the summer of 1936, much of the plains were no longer being cultivated, and the bare ground contributed to the high temperatures, Burt said.
Further, as Slate notes, the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adjusts recorded temperatures to account for the heat island effect.
To sum up: Baker fails at being a global warming denier.
WND's Kupelian Lies About Obama, Military Voting Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily managing editor David Kupelian uses an Aug. 9 column to claim that President Obama's re-election campaign is trying to "suppress, in that pivotal swing state, the votes of America’s military men and women – people who traditionally lean conservative and vote Republican" by filing a lawsuit in Ohio over early-voting laws that allow members of the military three days longer to vote early than civilians.
Needless to say, Kupelian is lying through his teeth. The goal of the lawsuit is to extend civilian early voting to that of the military, not reduce the military deadline to the existing civilian one.
The funny thing is, Kupelian sort of concedes that by admitting that pretty much everyone else, which he disparagingly characterizes as "the vast, perpetually mesmerized pro-Obama media," as well as "the establishment’s arbiters of All Truth On The Internet, Snopes, Politifact and FactCheck," all disagree with that assessment.
But Kupelian has never been one to let facts get in the way, has he? So he stumbles forward with his anti-Obama attack:
What?, you may ask. How could everybody, including the military, having three more days to vote hurt our soldiers? Indeed, “what’s the matter with everybody having three extra days to vote?” is the current establishment refrain, its purveyors claiming incorrectly that all Ohio voters used to have those same three days for early voting. They didn’t: Although state law allowed it, local voting authorizes could decide if they wanted to implement early voting or not. Only “six counties had weekend voting and extended hours and 82 of them didn’t,” lead defendant and Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted told the Associated Press.
And why was that? Husted explained, in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview, that setting limits on early voting for most Ohioans – other than the relatively few in the armed forces – is necessary so Ohio’s election boards can synchronize the early balloting records with those at 9,800 polling places to prevent voter fraud – people voting more than once. And as Ohio’s state GOP chairman, Bob Bennett, said in a written statement: “Nobody is being disenfranchised here, as Ohio’s voters who choose to vote early can do so by mail 24 hours a day, seven days a week or at early voting polls.”
The REAL issue at stake here, the one virtually no one is talking about, and the reason it hurts the military if the judge forces Ohio to open all its polling places for all voters for the final three days, is the legal precedent that will be set – namely, that our soldiers cannot constitutionally be given a break, a few extra days, to get their votes in.
Friends, you can’t obtain “reasonable results” through abominable means and then call it good. (That would be like me robbing a bank and then going home and saying, “Dear, I made a lot of money today.”) The price America will pay to obtain in Ohio a totally unnecessary “three extra days for everybody to vote” (if the judge rules the way Obama for America is asking it to rule) is the creation of a new legal precedent that it is unconstitutional to give any special consideration to military voters. After all, that is precisely the plaintiffs’ legal argument.
But as the Ohio defendants’ legal response points out so eloquently, America has always made special concessions for its soldiers to assure their opportunity to vote, going back to the Revolutionary War.
In fact, even right-wing voting rights activist Hans von Spakovsky agrees that there is no massive problem with voter fraud in American elections, so that argument falls flat. Further, Ohio is apparently the only state that has such a two-tiered system.
But Kupelian's not done misleading yet:
Then in 2010, ex-DOJ attorney M. Eric Eversole spoke out against the Obama Justice Department for its failure to safeguard the military vote.
Although Congress had passed in 2009 a law mandating that military personnel overseas be given sufficient time to participate in U.S. elections, the DOJ’s Voting Section was ignoring the new laws, potentially allowing thousands of uncounted ballots to fall through the cracks, said Eversole, a former litigation attorney for the DOJ Voting Section.
Eversole was hired by DOJ under the Bush administration during the period the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility said that Schlozman was improperly considering political affiliation when hiring career attorneys. What he and Kupelian portray as the DOJ purportedly "ignoring the law laws" -- for which Eversole provided no substantial evidence -- was actually the DOJ working with states that had not changed their primary voting deadlines for to preserve the intent of the law.
If WND's managing editor is promoting such lies and dishonesty, is it any wonder that the rest of WND reads the same way?
CNS' Jeffrey Tries to Heather An Archbishop Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center's practice of Heathering -- berating and shunning conservatives who fail to march in total lockstep with the right-wing agenda -- gets a big expansion by CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, who not only expands it to religion but targets one of the most prominent Catholic officials in America.
President Barack Obama, who is moving ahead with a regulation that forces observant American Catholics to act against their consciences and the teachings of their faith, will be one of the keynote speakers at an Oct. 18 white-tie fundraiser hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The fundraiser—the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner--will benefit the foundation, which Cardinal Dolan serves as board president. The foundation's website says it provides funding “for healthcare causes.”
Al Smith, a three-term governor of New York, became the first Catholic presidential candidate in U.S. history when the Democratic Party nominated him in 1928.
Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts determined that Catholic hospitals in that state would be required to distribute Plan B abortion pills to rape victims, will join Obama as a keynote speaker at the white-tie dinner.
It takes some chutzpah -- to mix religious metaphors -- to suggest that the archbishop of New York is failing at being a Catholic.
In addition to the Heathering, Jeffrey starts deviating from the facts -- for instance, he falsely claims above that Plan B is an "abortion pill." He also claims that Obama is "outspokenly and unambiguously pro-abortion," refusing to acknowledge the fact that favoring abortion rights does not equal "pro-abortion."
Jeffrey also misleads with this statement:
In Illinois in 2001, Obama was the only state senator to speak on the senate floor against legislation that would have simply said a born baby is a “person,” a “human being,” a “child,” and an “individual” and thus entitled under the 14th Amendment to equal protection of the law.
In fact, the bill is not as "simple" as Jeffrey claims. Jeffrey is referring to a "born alive" bill, which would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a "born alive infant" entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive. Critics said that the bill could have been used to challenge Roe v. Wade. Obama specifically said on the Illinois senate floor regarding the 2001 bill that it "would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute."
So not only is Jeffrey bashing a Catholic bishop for not being Catholic enough, he's being dishonest.
Jeffrey ramped up his dishonestly by waiting until the 27th paragraph of his article to let an archdiocese spokesman explain that "It is the tradition of the Smith dinner to invite the presidential candidates in the presidential election years in the spirit of nonpartisanship, good humor and good fellowship."
Jeffrey is not only an inflexible Catholic, he's a dishonest reporter. Will he confess his sin at confession time and seek forgiveness for his dishonesty?
NEW ARTICLE: Larry Klayman, Failed Lawyer Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's favorite lawyer loves filing lawsuits, which lately have been even more unsuccessful than usual. Read more >>
Meanwhile ... Topic: Newsmax
Media Matters asks why the New York Times is turning to the nest of Obama-haters at Newsmax to opine about President Obama's views on the media.
MRC Is Mad That Article About Conservatives Uses The Word 'Conservative' Topic: Media Research Center
Last February, the Media Research Center's Clay Waters was upset that a New York Times article about a gathering of conservatives uses the word "conservative." He's at it again in an Aug. 6 MRC TimesWatch post:
New York Times reporter John Eligon filed a "conservative"-loaded story from Topeka on Monday on the battle between conservatives and moderates in the Midwest: "In Kansas, Conservatives Vilify Fellow Republicans."
Eligon's story could be the paper's all-time winner as far as labeling density, with a staggering 33 uses of the word "conservative" in non-quoted material within the 1,367-word article, plus two labels in photo captions, plus the one in the headline. By contrast, the common conjunction "and" appeared a mere 27 times under the same parameters.
That's right -- Waters is mad that an article about conservatives uses the word "conservative."
Waters doesn't explain how the article should have been written differently.
Monckton Becomes A WND Columnist Topic: WorldNetDaily
Apparently, the only criteria for becoming a WorldNetDaily columnist these days is slavish devotion to right-wing talking points, no matter how false, and hatred of Barack Obama.
That would seem to explain how Christopher Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, has been named a WND columnist. In touting Monckton's appointment, WND states that Monckton is an "internationally known challenger to the claims of climate-change alarmists." We've previously noted how Monckton has presented himself as an anti-global warming expert despite having no scientific credentials.
But Monckton is also a birther, and WND just loves birthers -- even as the amount of willing ignorance of the facts it takes to remain one grows exponentially. (But WND won't report the facts, so Monckton and its readers remain in the dark.)
Monckton keeps up the Obama-bashing in his inaugural column, complete with plug for Aaron Klein's guilt-by-association book:
The United States is now governed not so much by Obama – who has become a dangerous irrelevance – as by China. The dirigiste, etatiste, centraliste policies detailed in “Fool Me Twice” are precisely the policies Communist China has so disastrously pursued since the unhappy days of Mao Zedong.
Monckton also repeats the discredited claim that Obama "moved Churchill’s bust out of the White House as an indication of his atavistic hostility to the West."
Character Assassin Bozell Complains About Character Assassination Topic: Media Research Center
In an Aug. 7 CNSNews.com post, Craig Bannister excerpts a Daily Caller interview of his boss, Bozell:
“What is the degree to which the left has gone to the strategy that ends justify the means? And increasingly they’ll do whatever they need to do to get their way. Character assassination is now a way of life with these people.
That's right -- the guy who called President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead" is complaining about "character assassination."
The Republican book on President Obama is that his foreign policy, like everything else he has done, is a disaster. Don't tell that to Christopher Ruddy.
Ruddy begins his Aug. 2 Newsmax column in typical right-wing fashion, claiming that Obama's "re-election seriously is in jeopardy because, in the early days of his administration, the president rejected a path of compromise and bipartisanship on domestic policy matters." This ignores the fact that Republicans also rejected compromise and bipartisanship.
Then, Ruddy doe something uncharacteristic for a right-wing activist: praises Obama's foreign policy:
Two years ago, I thought an Obama presidency would be a redux of the Jimmy Carter years. Remember them? The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and cracked down on Poland. Armed communist guerillas were prevalant throughout Latin America and Africa. Iran fell into the hands of the ayatollahs.
But I was wrong. Obama has, in fact, offered an engaged foreign policy, backed up with a strong military hand.
I hear, from time to time — on talk radio, for instance — that Obama is weak on national security and that he's dismantling the U.S. military (I am being mild here about how Obama is described).
Recently, I was in Washington and talked privately with one of the nation's highest military officers, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I asked him for the Pentagon take on Obama. He told me bluntly that Pentagon officials that worked under Bush and Obama believe them "both to be very good" on national security matters.
He added that the Obama White House has been extremely supportive of the Pentagon and its initiatives. Rarely do they have disagreements, and when they do, Obama usually comes down on the side of the Pentagon brass.
In fact, the officer said Obama had been engaged and supportive in ways that had amazed many in the upper ranks. For example, last year when the Joint Chiefs put together a document known as the Strategic Review, a white paper outlining the nation's potential threats and setting the global military priorities of the Defense Department for the next decade, Obama played a key role.
The Joint Chiefs met six or seven times to hash out the details of the Strategic Review. Typically, presidents have little involvement in the review process.
Obama, the officer, told me, joined almost all the key meetings with the Joint Chiefs, some of which lasted several hours.
"He asked a lot of really good questions; he made a lot of good comments; he really bought into the plan," the officer related, saying that no one in the Pentagon could remember a president so supportive and involved.
This vignette about Obama is part of the larger, positive picture that emerges about him on the national security front, but it is also a story about how he has used his leadership skills to bring disparate parties together for common goals and shared interests.
Of course, Ruddy may be saying such things in order to make Newsmax appear less blatantly partisan. Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid has quoted the maker of a fantastically speculative anti-Obama film claiming that Newsmax canceled the advertising campaign he bought on the website to promote the film because "they wanted to move to the Center.'" Newsmax's attempt to purchase Newsweek was another grasp at mainstream respectability.
Ruddy's blips of truth are admirable, but they are only going to get him Heathered by right-wingers who care nothing about the truth and everything about trying to destroy Obama.
Bozell's 'Religious Bigotry' Group Ignores Non-Christian Religious Bigotry Topic: Media Research Center
With a name like Citizens Against Religious Bigotry, you'd think that the group would be interested in fighting all instances of religious bigotry. But it's clear that the group cares only about one particular religion.
CARB was co-founded by the Media REsearch Center's Brent Bozell, and the MRC is essentially supporting it -- the domain name " CitizensAgainstReligiousBigotry.org" currently redirects to a page at MRC Action. Bozell's narrow-mindedness and fierce right-wing partisanship are apparently driving the group, making a mockery of its name.
An Aug. 7 press release issued on the MRC website states how "more than 20 conservative leaders have joined Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell in raising their voices in support of religious freedom and our Constitutionally protected right to free speech." So far, so good.
So what was the pressing issue Bozell and the others spoke out on? "The controversy over Chick-fil-A exposed the rampant anti-Christian bias and First Amendment double standard characteristic of liberal media."
Of the groups represented on Bozell's coalition, several are described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "anti-gay," and three -- the American Family Association, the Traditional Values Coalition and the Family Research Council -- are identified by the SPLC as "hate groups" for their "propagation of known falsehoods" about gays and their "repeated, groundless name-calling." The MRC is hostile to gays as well.
While CARB was intensely concerned about the doings of a fast-food restaurant (arguably living up to its acronym), it thus far has been completely silent about recent instances of religious bigotry that don't involve Christians:
If CARB truly cared about "religious bigotry," Bozell and Co. would have spoken about these incidents. Instead, it appears to only care about right-wing Christianity.
In short, the group's name is a lie. Doesn't that violate one of the 10 Commandments?
Jerome Corsi has remained silent about how he and his Cold Case Posse colleague Mike Zullo completely botched the whole birth certificate coding thing, but he's still trying to discredit critics of himself and Joe Arpaio.
In an Aug. 6 WorldNetDaily article, Corsi complains:
WND has learned that Morgan Loew of KPHO-TV in Phoenix, a persistent and outspoken critic of WND and Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz., has joined forces with Dan Barr, the Phoenix representative of Perkins Coie, the Seattle-based law firm that continues to represent Obama on eligibility law suits. They’ve formed The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona, a free speech organization that claims it’s dedicated to obtaining transparency in government.
Loew is currently listed as the group’s president, with Barr as the registered agent legal contact for the group.
Examining the public record, Loew and Barr have established themselves not as unbiased advocates for good government, but as Democratic Party partisans willing to use Saul Alinsky-like tactics to demonize opponents. Their foes include WND, Arpaio and Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who they view as threats to the re-election of Obama.
In fact, the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona has been around since 1982, as noted in this amicus brief. Barr is a specialist in media law who has worked with numerous media companies.
Corsi goes on to accuse both Loew and Barr of bias. Loew was targeted for committing the offense of tackling WND's behind-the-scenes role in manipulating Arpaio into doing a birther "investigation." Meanwhile, Corsi writes, "Barr has display [sic] his partisan bias in a series of anti-Arpaio and anti-Romney comments he continues to post on Twitter."
Yes, these accusations of bias are coming from Jerome Corsi, a reporter so biased he refuses to report any information that contradicts his birther conspiracies.
Corsi doesn't even bother to disprove anything either Loew or Barr had to say -- he's just attacking them for saying it.
So, yeah, that's pretty much all Corsi has at this point. His birther conspiracies are crumbling, and he's simply too dishonest to admit it.
Political Hack Noel Sheppard Enjoys When Others Are Called Political Hacks Topic: NewsBusters
In an Aug. 4 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard got a charge out of right-wing Ramesh Ponnuru having "marvelously told" liberal-leaning Roland Martin to "call these things as you see them, not just be a political hack for your team."
Aaron Klein's Co-Author Pushes An Obama Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
The new Obama-bashing book by Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott, "Fool Me Twice," comes out today -- it appears to be nothing more than Klein's usual blend of biased speculation, guilt by association and conspiracy theories, just like their last book.
Meanwhile, co-author Elliott is peddling a lie that casts doubt on the veracity of the book. She tweets regarding President Obama, "Disenfranchising US troops is only the start."
Elliott links to a video asserting, "As part of Obama's strategy to steal every vote possible away from Mitt Romney, his minions quietly filed a lawsuit to disenfranchise our military." In fact, the lawsuit has the goal of extending the civilian early-voting deadline in Ohio to that of the military, not reducing the military early-voting window -- the exact opposite of what Elliott is claiming.
The video also claims, "As with all things associated with Obama, it was done in secret." Another falsehood -- the filing of the lawsuit was reported in the media that same day.
In other words, Elliott is lying through her teeth. If she'll lie about something so easily disproven, why should anyone trust what she and Klein write in her book?
It's a new month, which means CNSNews.com's Edwin Mora has a new update on his obsession with blaming President Obama for U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan:
For the total 1,954 deaths, 1,385 have occurred since President Barack Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009. That means at least 7 out of every 10 (about 71 percent) deaths in the Afghanistan war, which started in October 2001, have taken place in the three-plus years that Obama has been in the White House.
Statistically, Obama has presided over the top three deadliest years of the war: 2010 with 497 deaths, followed by 2011 with 399 deaths, and 2009 with 303 fatalities.
As is Mora's practice, completely absent from his article are the words "Bush" and "Iraq," though it would be an entirely fair comparison to compare troop deaths in Afghanistan with troop deaths under Bush in Iraq.
But then, Mora doesn't care about fairness, does he?
