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Sunday, October 13, 2013
No, MRC, Cruz Hecklers Didn't Call For 'Amnesty'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Dan Joseph chatted with people who were kicked out of the Value Voters Summit after heckling a speech by Sen. Ted Cruz. In discussing their views on immigration reform in the video posted at CNSNews.com and NewsBusters, neither Joseph nor the hecklers used the word "amnesty."

Yet in the CNS article Joseph wrote to accompany the video, Joseph declared that the hecklers were "advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants." And in the NewsBusters post accompanying Joseph's video there, Tim Graham wrote that the protesters were "heckling for amnesty."

Um, no. As we've documented, "amnesty" means something, and the "path to citizenship" advocated by the protesters includes numerous condidtions and thus is not, by definition, "amnesty."


Posted by Terry K. at 10:53 PM EDT
WND's Farah Pretends To Care About Miriam Carey
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah continues to concern-troll over a shooting outside the Capitol min his Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily column:

A young, unarmed black mother with a baby in the car was shot down more than a week ago by a virtual firing squad of Capitol Hill police.

Why do I appear to be the only person in America with a platform troubled by this senseless execution in cold blood?

I’m trying to imagine if this would be the case if George W. Bush had been residing in the White House at the time.

We imagine that if Bush had been residing in the White House at the time, Farah would be passing this story on to Colin Flaherty, who would portray it as yet another example of purported "black mob violence" in America.

But because there is a black Democrat in the White House -- one that Farah and his website have spent years trying to destroy -- Farah has decided that Miriam Carey's death can be exploited for political purposes:

Where is the black community on this atrocity? Where is Al Sharpton?

Is it all right to act like this when the president and the attorney general are black?

Experience more of Joseph Farah’s no-nonsense truth-telling in his books, audio and video products, featured in the WND Superstore

I guess it is as long as they continue to search for ways to subject George Zimmerman to double jeopardy.

Where is the American Civil Liberties Union? Where are all the so-called “civil rights activists”?

Where is the police review board in Washington?

I tossed and turned most of the night after this shooting. Did anyone else in America have that reaction?

But most people tossing and tuyrning over the shooting were likely doing so for different reasons than Farah, who was likely trying to figure out how to use Carey's death against Obama. And by golly, that's what he does:

Most of all, I wonder, where is Barack Obama?

Why hasn’t he been asked about this unseemly spectacle?

Why hasn’t he offered his take on the shooting?

After all, Miriam Carey had delusions that Obama was stalking her – at least we assume they were delusions.

It’s been a sad week for America for many reasons. I mourn for Miriam Carey. I mourn for America. Does anyone else?

Joseph Farah does not give a damn about Miriam Carey. He cares only about using any and all means necessary -- including Carey's death -- as a cudgel against President Obama. He's driven by hate, not by compassion.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:06 PM EDT
Saturday, October 12, 2013
AIM's Kincaid Freaks Out About De Blasio's Name Change
Topic: Accuracy in Media

What is it about New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio's name change that so unnerves right-wingers?

In an Oct. 10 Accuracy in Media column that mostly rants about de Blasio's supposed pro-communist past, Cliff Kincaid drops this in: "Curiously, it also turns out that de Blasio has had three different names, but he refuses to talk about that in any depth, either."

As we pointed out when the Catholic League's Bill Donohue freaked out about it at Newsmax, de Blasio has discussed his name changes -- he was abandoned by his father and taking the name of his mother's family is his way of honoring the side of the family that raised him.

There is an explanation, but Kincaid has no interest in finding out about it, preferring to construct a conspiracy theory about it instead.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:12 PM EDT
WND's Unruh Can't Stop Perpetuating Homeschool-Nazi Myth
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bob Unruh, it seems, is not about to let the facts interfere with his defense of homeschooling.

Unruh writes in an Oct. 10 WorldNetDaily article:

A petition filed Thursday asks the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Nazi-era standard that would be imposed if the Obama administration gets its wish and deports a family of homeschoolers to Germany.

The petition from the Home School Legal Defense Association is on behalf of the Romeike family, which fled Germany because of the nation’s ban on homeschooling.

Germany bans homeschooling based on a Nazi-era philosophy that the shaping of the minds of children ultimately must be guided by the state, not parents.

As we pointed out the last time Unruh wrote about the Romeike case, compulsory schooling in Germany dates farther back than the Nazi era -- it has been a tradition for a good 200 years.

Then, Unruh quotes a homeschool activist making the same claim:

HSLDA’s founder and president, Michael Farris, noted that international human rights protections were written in response to Germany’s practices in the Nazi era.

“It is impossible to distinguish the German desire for philosophical conformity today from that of the 1930s,” he said. “Children do not belong to any government in any decade.”

Like Unruh, Farris is going Godwin. As the chancellor and moot court coach at Patrick Henry College, the homeschooler-friendly school he founded, Farris should know better than to make such dishonest claims and engage in such a rhetorical fallacy.

As per WND policy, Unruh tells only the homeschoolers' side of the story, ignoring any mention of the fact that the Romeikes also rejected private and religious schools in Germany, and could have chosen to work toward creating a school in Germany that more closely aligns with their claimed "Christian faith" but they apparently chose not to.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:12 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, October 12, 2013 2:17 AM EDT
Friday, October 11, 2013
Newsmax's Favorite Presidential Candidate Doesn't Register In Newsmax Poll
Topic: Newsmax

Jim Meyers touts Newsmax's latest poll in an Oct. 10 article:

If the Republican presidential primary were held today, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would garner the most votes, according to a new Newsmax/Zogby poll.

Christie received 11.4 percent of the votes in the survey, just ahead of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who collected 11.2 percent, and Rand Paul, 10.1 percent.

Pollsters interviewed  418 likely voters, including Democrats, Republicans and Independents, as well as a variety of age groups and background. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

[...]

The poll offered respondents a list of 21 potential candidates. Here are the candidates and the percentage of the survey votes they received:

Christie, 11.4 percent; Bush, 11.2; Paul 10.1; Paul Ryan, 9.1; Sarah Palin, 6.9; Ted Cruz, 6.5; Marco Rubio, 3.7; Rick Santorum, 2.8; Rick Perry, 1.6; Scott Walker, 1.5; Allen West, 1.4; Ben Carson, 1.3.

Next on the list of candidates, Bobby Jindal, 0.9 percent; Mitch Daniels, 0.8; John Kasich, 0.8; Rob Portman, 0.8; Jim DeMint, 0.4; Bob McDonnell, 0.3; Susana Martinez, 0.2; Nikki Haley, 0; Jon Thune, 0.

Strangely missing from Newsmax's poll is Peter King, despite the fact that it was none other than Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy put the bug in King's ear to run for president. Even more strange is the fact that unlike many of the names Newsmax polled on, King has specifically expressed interest in running for president in 2016.

Why wouldn't Newsmax want to poll for a candidate it created? Very strange indeed.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:30 PM EDT
WND Promotes Debt Limit Denialism
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Unsurprisingly for a website that is trying to con readers into giving it money to tell members of Congress not to raise the debt ceiling, WorldNetDaily is rather desperate to push the myth that not raising the debt ceiling has no consequences.

Bob Unruh writes in an Oct. 8 WND article:

President Obama has been using the threat of a “default” to persuade House Republicans to fund his newly implemented health-care law and the rest of the heavily indebted federal bureaucracy, as well as end the government shutdown.

[...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi both have followed the party talking points, encouraging Americans to “avoid default” by having the GOP give the president what he wants.

The  problem, however, is that the Democrats’ threat of default is not reality, according to leading economists.

Unruh then repeats claims from various sources claiming that there is no threat of default because the federal government would still be receiving enough in revenue to pay interest on the money it has borrowed.

Garth Kant followed with an Oct. 9 article:

A growing number of economists and politicians say President Obama is just factually wrong when he claims the United States is risking default by not raising the debt celing.

They also say Obama is mistaken in claiming that failure to raise the debt ceiling would be a disaster, or as he put it, “insane, catastrophic, chaos.”

One famous economist even goes so far as to portray the president’s dire warnings as outright dangerous and irresponsible. CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow accused the president of threatening “to pull the whole system down for (his) own gain.”

But as economist Jared Bernstein points out, even if the federal government paid its creditors, there is not enough money to pay all expenses, and that is "default by another name."

Both Unruh and Kant reference the claim that default could be avoided by prioritizing expenses. But that's a fallacy as well: Experts say such prioritization is unworkable and legally dubious, in that the Treasury Department doesn't have the legal authority to prioritize payments.

Unruh and Kant dismiss or ignore entirely such arguments. That's not good journalism.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:36 PM EDT
CNS' Jeffrey Now Just Flat-Out Deceiving His Readers
Topic: CNSNews.com

Terry Jeffrey isn't even bothering to engage in honest journalism anymore.

Jeffrey's Oct. 8 CNSNews.com column caries the headline "Obama Administration Prohibits Kennedy Family from Practicing Catholicism." It begins:

The Obama administration has prohibited the Kennedy family from practicing its Catholicism, and the Kennedys now intend to ask the Supreme Court to restore their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Their case could become one of the most consequential in our nation's history. The issue: Will the most fundamental liberty of all--freedom of conscience--survive in post-Obama America?

It's not until the third paragraph that Jeffrey mentions it's not that Kennedy family:

John Kennedy serves as president of Autocam and Autocam Medical, Michigan-based companies that produce automobile components and medical devices. He and his family own the companies, which employ 661 people in the United States.

That's deception and manipulation of the most base and cynical kind.

On top of that, Jeffrey repeats the discredited myth that Obamacare pays for "abortions induced by drugs."

What kind of example is Jeffrey setting for his CNS employees? It's clear that Jeffrey no longer cares about using the website he runs to tell the truth -- if, indeed, he ever did.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:48 PM EDT
Obama Derangement Syndrome, 'Meaty, Deceitful Lips' Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

At the White House on Tuesday, President Obama delivered a statement and took questions from reporters on the partial government shutdown and the ongoing fight over raising the federal debt ceiling. I think that the only thing worse than having to endure the interminable effluvia of falsehoods was having to hear them over and again as he flapped his meaty, deceitful lips for an entire hour.

[...]

It is Obama’s obstinacy that so many are finding troublesome. Cited as being unprecedented, this ought not be a surprise, since having a revolutionary Marxist in the White House is also unprecedented. His modality has become that of a dictator, as evidenced by those who have recognized this and articulated the same. On Monday, Arizona state Rep. Brenda Barton posted on her Facebook page that “Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer [sp],” likening Obama to Nazi despot Adolf Hitler.

-- Erik Rush, Oct. 9  WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 12:07 PM EDT
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Meanwhile ...
Topic: Media Research Center
Media Matters highlights the "unabashed transphobia" of the Media Research Center's Matt Philbin, as displayed in a Washington Times op-ed claiming that LGBT movement is part of a broader left-wing effort to "dismantle" Western civilization.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:49 PM EDT
WND Launches Meaningless Petition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An Oct. 8 WorldNetDaily article is dedicated to touting WND's latest anti-Obama petition:

Got your Obamacare rate hikes? Like the deductible? How about the coverage? Still want it? Or is there another path you’d like to see Congress take?

The time to tell your representatives and senators is right now, or, as the minister says at weddings, “forever hold your peace.”

A new petition has been launched urging Congress to roll back President Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America.”

The issues are multiple: the government shutdown because Obama refused to compromise with House Republicans, the president’s demand to have unfettered access to borrowing and spending more taxpayer money, the intimidating warning that if the GOP doesn’t cave in Obama will allow the “full faith and credit” of the nation to be compromised.

It’s a petition urging the House of Representatives to “stand strong and united, and not to cave in to the ‘make-the-shutdown-hurt’ and extortionist tactics of President Barack Obama.”

The article strangely doesn't mention the fact that WND created the petition. Nor does the article state what WND will do with the petition when it gets enough signatures, however many that may be.

Perhaps that's because the petition itself is beside the point - the real goal is to serve as a vehicle for gathering email addresses. The end of the petition states:

Notice: You will also be signed up for WND's free emails so you can keep up to date with breaking news and special offers from WND. You may change your email preferences at any time.

This petition may not go anywhere -- heck, it's almost guaranteed not to -- but WND will have a longer email list it can sell to advertisers.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:48 PM EDT
NewsBusters Throws Evangelicals Under the Bus to Deflect From Catholic Sex Abuse
Topic: NewsBusters

We've documented how NewsBusters' Dave Pierre is so desperate to distract people from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that he'll throw other religions under the bus.

Pierre has done it again in an Oct. 7 post:

Just last week, Boz Tchividjian, a prominent Liberty University law professor and the grandson of Billy Graham, stood before a roomful of journalists and declared that Evangelical missions are a "magnet" for sexual abusers and that Evangelicals "are worse" than the Catholic Church at handling the problem.

Speaking to the annual gathering of the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA) in Austin, Texas, Tchividjian said that Evangelicals have "sacrificed the souls" of innocent children, and of known data from abuse cases, a shocking 25 percent are repeat cases, he claimed. Tchividjian is also the executive director of an organization called Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which works on combating abuse in the Evangelical community.

Last summer, GRACE spearheaded an online petition condemning the "silence" and "inattention" to sex abuse in Evangelical organizations, especially its missions.
                                      
Where are you, mainstream media?

Despite reporting saying that Tchividjian made his remarks to a "roomful of journalists," not a single major American media outlet reported Tchividjian's eye-opening and shocking claims. (Update: As this post was going to publication, we saw that Huffington Post did indeed post a story about Tchividjian's claims.)

Pierre neglects to mention that the evangelical community is not made up of a single organization with a worldwide reach in which there were systematic efforts to hide abuse, as what happened in the Catholic Church. Evangelicals are made up of several small denominations, none of which even approaches the size of the Catholic Church, and numerous unaffiliated church communities.

While sexual abuse of children is horrific no matter where it takes place, Pierre has not demonstrated that any condoning or cover-up of such abuse has occured on the level of what happened in the Catholic Church. Without a single large organization to point at, such abuse will continue to be reported on a local level.

Pierre is simply continuing his campaign of distracting attention from Catholic sexual abuse by pointing elsewhere.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:34 PM EDT
WND's Lee Hieb Piles Up The Falsehoods And Deceptions
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We don't know who keeps track of such things, but Dr. Lee Hieb seems to have approached some kind of record for having the most falsehoods and deceptions in a single column.

Hieb begins her Oct. 7 WorldNetDaily column:

So, Warren Buffet woke up and called foul to Obamacare. John Boehner finally found a spine and tried to call a halt to Obamacare. But does it matter? Isn’t it all too little, too late?

In fact, Buffett (whose name Hieb misspells throughout her column) did not say such a thing -- the remarks were taken out of context and originally spoken three years ago. Buffett himself said, “It’s 100 percent wrong … totally false.”

Hieb then wrote:

I presume that the “Wizard of Omaha,” whose house I pass frequently on my way to and from shopping, is not stupid financially. He presumably gets the idea that you cannot spend more than you make, nor can you pay people to be idle.

First, Buffett is called the "Oracle of Omaha." Second, it seems highly doubtful that Hieb really does "frequently" pass by Buffett's house.

According to Hieb's LinkedIn profile, she is a surgeon at Stewart Memorial Community Hospital in Lake City, Iowa, which is, according to Google Maps' preferred route, 132 miles from Omaha. One online bio of Hieb states that "She currently divides her time between an Orthopaedic practice in Iowa, chicken raising and caring for her husband and two sons," which further suggests she has little time to go out of her way to drive by Buffett's Omaha home.

She appears to live in Logan, Iowa, which is closer to Obama but still nearly 40 miles away. She seems to be kept busy there fighting city notices to remove chickens from her property. With so much traveling between Logan and Lake City, Obama would be far out of her way to visit with the frequency she claims, let alone to go as far into the city as one must to drive past Buffett's house.

Hieb then rants:

But until we hold Congress to the Constitution, it doesn’t matter what law they pass anywhere about anything. You can go to jail for all sorts of violations of their little bureaucrat regulations, which is how Dr. Natale ended in Federal Prison for something he wrote in an operative note and how an ophthalmologist in San Diego ended in federal prison for choosing the wrong CPT codes and how a businessman ended in prison for importing the wrong subspecies of crustacean.

Dr. John Natale was imprisoned for something a little more serious than "something he wrote in an operative note." Most people would call it Medicare fraud. According to the Chicago Tribune, Natale was convicted on two counts of making false statements, and "the trial jury found that for at least two patients in 2004, Natale prepared false post-operation reports containing details about aneurysm repairs that he never performed, and falsely describing the surgeries he did perform as being more complex and elaborate than they actually were." The judge also found that Natale obstructed justice while testifying in his own behalf at trial.

Hieb doesn't give enough info on "ophthalmologist in San Diego ended in federal prison for choosing the wrong CPT codes," but it appears she's referring to Jeffrey Rutgard, whose case the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- where Hieb is past president -- has championed. Rutgard was convicted in 1992 of 132 counts of fraud (which presumably involved a lot more than putting down the wrong billing codes), for which he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay $16 million in restitution. On appeal, some of the charges were dropped and that sentence vacated; he was resentenced to time served in prison.

To what end is Hieb directing all of these falsehoods and misrepresentations? Bashing Obamacare, of course. Hieb does graciously concede that Obamacare did not start "the collapse of America," but asserts that it "will be the straw on the camel’s back to finish."


Posted by Terry K. at 2:51 AM EDT
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Double Standard on Vaccines
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center hates it when people fearmonger about vaccines -- while it fearmongers about anti-HPV vaccines like Gardasil. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 8:29 PM EDT
WND's Farah Conspiracy-Mongers About Shooting Outside Capitol
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah writes in his Oct. 6 WorldNetDaily column:

I wonder if Holder will zealously pursue charges against the Capitol police for riddling with gunfire the car and body of a young mother and black dental hygienist, Miriam Carey, whose baby was with her at the time.

I kinda doubt it.

Did Miriam Carey break the law? Yes.

Did she have a bad driving day? Yes.

Did she make some very bad decisions? Yes.

But did she try to kill anyone? I have not seen any evidence to that effect.

It sounds to me like she freaked out because she was surrounded by men pointing guns at her and her baby.

Should the police think twice about pointing guns at people in such situations? Maybe.

Should the police think twice about firing their weapons at a car that might be carrying an innocent child? Yes.

Should the police think twice about using an execution-style firing squad on an unarmed woman when she finally exits her vehicle? Yes.

Should Farah think twice before engaging in such conspiratorial speculation? Yes.

Farah's admonition about the police "firing their weapons at a car that might be carrying an innocent child" is nonsensical. He seems not to understand that every car "might be carrying an innocent child," and he offers no evidence that police had any reason to suspect a child was in the car in the first place.

We suspect that Farah would advise police to be less reticent about shooting a suspect if said suspect "might be" a Muslim.

Such paranoiac ranting is of a piece with his house attorney, Larry Klayman, who declared that the police who shot and killed Carey were "Obama's henchmen." No wonder Farah keeps such an obviously incompetent lawyer on the WND payroll.


Posted by Terry K. at 2:43 PM EDT
Newsmax's Hirsen Unhappy With Pro-Obamacare 'Propaganda'
Topic: Newsmax

James Hirsen begins his Oct. 7 Newsmax column by grousing that "Young Americans are being inundated with propaganda that sings the praises of Obamacare."

That's ironic, considering that Hirsen's column appears at a website that inundates its readers with propaganda opposing Obamacare.

But Hirsen is willing to turn a blind eye to that as he bashes "liberal Hollywood elitists" for supporting "the mounting Obamacare debacle." (That sounds like propagandistic language, doesn't it?)

Hirsen takes particular offense to a "Saturday Night Live" skit mocking Michele Bachmann and John Boehner that "additionally made the GOP’s efforts in Congress the subject of further humiliation." Hirsen called the skit "pornographic" and huffed: "Hopefully, for the public, this will be the last straw. No private or public figure should have to endure this type of nationally televised wholesale ridicule and derision, political leaders of any party affiliation being no exception."

Funny, we can't recall a single instance when Hirsen came out so aggressively against ridicule of a liberal. Perhaps Hirsen can point us to one, if it exists.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:51 AM EDT
Updated: Thursday, November 14, 2013 12:49 AM EST

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