MRC Takes Another Cheap Shot At Sandra Fluke
Topic: Media Research Center

You might recall that the Media Research Center was one of the most vociferous defenders of Rush Limbaugh following his three-day misogynistic tirade against Sandra Fluke, with MRC chief Brent Bozell refusing to offer any meaningful criticism and launching an "I Stand With Rush" website and his MRC underlings enthusiastically endorsing Rush's misogyny.

Fluke's loss in her race to be elected to a California state senate seat gave the MRC an opportunity to another cheap shot at Fluke. In their Dec. 27 column, Bozell and Tim Graham sneer: "Even that paragon of permissiveness Sandra Fluke couldn’t exploit her Limbaugh-victim aura to win a state Senate seat in libertine California."

How does advocating for birth control make one a "paragon of permissiveness"? Bozell and Graham don't explain, perhaps because the exact opposite is true: Fluke is demonstrating her responsibility.

Apparently Bozell and Graham think every woman who takes birth control is a slut or a prostitute, just like Limbaugh said.

WND's Farah Prays For Others (But Not Himself) To Repent
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah discusses New Year's resolutions in his Dec. 31 WorldNetDaily column:

Politics takes place largely in the natural world, and that’s where we live. But we need to recognize there’s a world beyond the natural.

That’s why I resolve in 2015 to devote more time and passion to personal prayer. The older I get, the more convinced I become that prayer is the most effective and important thing we can do with our time – for both the natural world and the spiritual realm.

God wants to have that relationship with his children. And we need to have it with Him.

Here’s what I will be praying for in 2015:

That believers in the United States repent for what they have allowed our country to become. America has been one of the strongest, freest and most prosperous nations in the world for a long time. It has also been one of the strongholds of Christianity. But all that is changing. And it’s the fault of Christians. Believers need to be on our knees more in 2015 repenting not just for the sins of the nation, but our personal sins. Our model should be 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Farah himself apparently feels no need to repent, even though he's in desperate need of doing so. Not only is he an inveterate liar, his website peddles hate and fear and misinformation on a daily basis.

Farah likes to set himself up as an avatar of all that is right and Christian, yet he won't subject himself to the standards he demands from others. His hypocritical "National Day of Prayer and Fasting" showed this, as he laughably insisted his motivation wasn't political even as his bill of particulars for the day read like an anti-Obama rant.

Farah demands others repent for their "personal sins," but it seems he doesn't believe he needs to do the same for his personal sins. He's apparently not enough of a Christian to know that God frowns upon such arrogance.

CNS Blogger Joins MRC's Heathering of WaPo Columnist
Topic: CNSNews.com

A couple weeks ago, the Media Research Center's Tim Graham unleashed a fit of Heathering on conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin for the offense of being less than hard-core conservative by criticizing Ted Cruz. Now Jen Kuznicki, a blogger at the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com joins the Heathering fun:

It's amazing to look at the amount of column space that is used up by a blogger for the Washington Post's so-called "Right Turn" blog that tries to demoralize and belittle conservative politicians.  Lately, Jennifer Rubin, a self-described conservative who is very new to conservatism, has been attacking Cruz, but she's been just as vitriolic toward many conservative members of the House and Senate who simply disagree with her inexperienced and disjointed view of conservatism.

And so, as I read her columns, she comes off as an unhinged attack dog, who, rather than listening to conservatives who have, might I be blunt, many more Americans agreeing with them than with her, would rather try to use her space at the Washington Post to seek an outcome to election cycles rather than having a sane conversation on what is right for the country.

For the majority of Americans, the Washington Post blogger does not exist.  Most people, I think we can all agree, don't really get into the kind of politics that is necessary for those who make a living commenting on it.  So, either it is Jennifer Rubin's own view that the majority of people would not agree with, the people she vehemently opposes in her columns, or she's in that nasty DC bubble the rest of the nation ignores.

Kuznicki offers no evidence to back up her claim that Ted Cruz's brand of conservative is more popular than Rubin's. It seems she's just making up things to justify her Heathering.

NEW ARTICLE: Joseph Farah's Year of Obama Derangement
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's editor won't acknowlege Barack Obama is president, so it's no surprise he spent 2014 saying hateful things about Obama. Read more >>

Klayman Gets Softball Interview on Newsmax
Topic: Newsmax

Larry Klayman is a deranged Obama-hater and an incompetent lawyer. But Newsmax thinks his views

A Dec. 29 Newsmax article by Sean Piccoli dutifully transcribes an interview Klayman did on Newsmax TV. In the two entire segments he devotes to interviewing Klayman, guest host Ric Blackwell serves up softball questions and fails to ask any follow-up questions about Klayman's outrageous statements, such as calling President Obama an "emperor," or his laughable claim he's "neutral" on the issue of immigration. Blackwell ends the interview by fawningly calling Klayman a "leading voice on the right."

The promos attached to the video claim that Newsmax TV is devoted to "real news, better talk." Since when does turning over your network to a hateful nutjob like Klayman for 10 minutes and failing to challenge his extremist views equate "real news, better talk"?

WND Pushes Dubious Idea of Rampant 'Pro-Abortion' Violence
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Alex Newman's Dec. 25 WorldNetDaily article begins with an apparent falsehood:

It was Sept. 11, 2009, just outside a high school in the small Michigan town of Owosso when Jim Pouillon, 63, was murdered for doing what he thought was right: protesting against abortion, which he considered murder.

In fact, Pouillon's son states that his father was a domestic abuser who "really didn't care" and took part in anti-abortion protests to indulge in his "pathologic hatred of women." Pouillon's son continued:

Again, my dad didn't care about abortion. He wanted to hurt people, upset people. He enjoyed making people suffer.

His goal was to be shot on a sidewalk. His goal was to make someone so angry, to make them feel so terrorized, to make them feel the only way they could make him stop was to kill him.

His pro-life stance was the most perfect crime I personally know of. He hid behind the 1st Amendment and was allowed to stalk, terrorise, harass, be obsene, ect. These things are crimes. Offending people isn't a crime, and having different political views isn't a crime, but he committed several crimes over the last 20 years and got away with it.

But neer mind the facts: The goal of Newman's article is to promote the idea that violence against anti-abortion activists is "common and widespread." Newman cites only "a two-week review by WND" that's heavy on statistics by the rabidly anti-abortion group Human Life International, so the objectivity of its numbers are questionable. Indeed, Newman offers no evidence he double-checked HLI's numbers in his supposedly extensive "two-week review."

Newman also features quotes from Operation Rescue leader Troy Newman lamenting death threats against him by "the enemies of God — the radical homosexuals, the God-haters, the atheists, the abortionists." Not only doesn't Alex Newman mention that his employer published a book by Troy Newman, he ignores Operation Rescue's links to Scott Roeder, who murdered abortion doctor George Tiller.

As we've documented, Troy Newman and his Operation Rescue lieutenant Cheryl Sullenger -- who served time in prison for plotting to bomb an abortion clinic --  had numerous contacts with Roeder in the years before he murdered Tiller, and Roeder has stated that Troy Newman told him it “wouldnʼt upset” him if Tiller were murdered.

Of course, such shoddy, self-serving journalism is how WND operates. The surprising thing is that WND continues to find writers who are willing to violate the most basic rules of journalism.

CNS Portrays Gays As Diseased To Fight Lifting of Blood Donation Ban
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com is so unhappy with a federal decision to move toward lifting a ban on gay men donating blood that it's pulling out all the stops to portray gays as filthy and diseased.

In a Dec. 30 article noting the decision, Penny Starr makes sure to tell us that "men who have sex with men (MSM) have much higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis compared to heterosexual men," and that "men having sex with men are at highest risk for getting HIV and represent the largest number of new infections, as well as the higher syphilis rates and higher rates of drug use."

Starr also repeats the testimony of Family Research Council official Peter Sprigg against lifting the ban, but she doesn't mention that the FRC is a rabidly anti-gay group whose testimony can't be trusted as objective.

How dedicated is Starr to portraying gays as disease-ridden parasites? Her article includes, for no apparent reason, a picture of an alleged "skin rash caused by syphilis":

Starr does not source the picture, so it's unclear what the picture is actually of.

Starr's homophobic smear is a part of CNS' overall denigration of LGBT issues as unworthy of being taken seriously by the federal government.

WND's Farah Can't Stop Telling Lies About Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah is unusually proud of the fact that his website publishes misinformation -- indeed, he essentially bragged about doing so, since he admitted doing it to a Salon reporter without apologizing or promising to do better.

In keeping with his tradition of peddling lies, Farah devoted his Dec. 26 column to telling more of them. After invoking the racially charged image of lazy black men by asking, "Imagine how bad off America would be if Barack Obama had a work ethic," Farah manufactures offense that Obama watches ESPN once in a while instead of obsessing about politics all day:

Think about that statement.

No. 1, we already know Obama takes more vacations than any 50 families in America combined, right? And those outlandishly expensive vacations are paid for by you and me.

No. 2, we know he plays more golf than most pros. Do you think he pays for his golf outings? Of course not.

Now we know he spends most of his mornings watching ESPN!

Farah is simply lying out of spite. While Obama had taken 125 full or partial days on vacation as of August, George W. Bush had taken 407 vacation days at the same point in his presidency. We don't recall Farah complaining about Bush taking "more vacations than any 50 families in America combined" -- even though the number would have to be increase to "any 200 families in America combined."

Farah's claim that Obama "plays more golf than most pros" is also a blatant lie. One hostile website claims that, as of this writing, Obama has played 208 rounds of golf. That equates to less than one round a week. By contrast, your typical golf pro plays four rounds a week during a tournament, plus several more rounds of practice time.

Further, Obama's total is only one-fourth the amount reportedly played by President Dwight Eisenhower.

It appears that Farah doesn't understand how he's destroying what little credibility his "news" organization has by telling easily discredited falsehoods.

CNS Ignored Benghazi-Debunking Report, But Jumped On Vacuous IRS Report
Topic: CNSNews.com

Last month, when a Republican-led House committee released a report that blew up numerous right-wing myths about Benghazi, CNSNews.com ignored it, reporting on its existence only when a Republican senator denounced it three days later.

But when a Republican-led House committee issued a report on the Internal Revenue Service's alleged targeting of conservative groups, CNS' Ali Meyer was Johnny-on-the-spot with a Dec. 23 article detailing it:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif) released a new report Tuesday, which reveals numerous cases of how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was purposely targeting conservative groups, with one IRS agent calling a conservative group “icky.”

The report, titled “The Internal Revenue Service’s Targeting of Conservative Tax-Exempt Applicants: Report of Findings for the 113th Congress,” reviewed 1.3 million pages and 52 transcribed interviews to find many examples of conservative targeting.

Meyer quotes only from the report and can't be moved to solicit reaction to it. The fact that the most salacious detail she can apparently find in it is "one IRS agent calling a conservative group 'icky,'" however, explains the lack of bombshell material it contains.

Indeed, as Salon points out (but Meyer doesn't), the report doesn't link this so-called IRS scandal to the White House, despite Issa's repeatedly suggesting there was one.

Rabidly Anti-Gay Scott Lively Defends Bill Cosby From 'Lynch Mob Justice'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Scott Lively takes time out from hating gays to defend Bill Cosby against sexual assault allegations in his Dec. 25 WorldNetDaily column:

I’m not entirely certain that Bill Cosby is innocent. It could be that his accusers are telling the truth, but I’m giving Mr. Cosby the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty is still an important principle in our law and culture, notwithstanding the conclusions of CNN’s producers.

What tips the scale for me in Mr. Cosby’s favor is the timing of these accusations. It seems awfully suspicious that the bravest black man in America on the issue of irresponsible black youth and their adult enablers was suddenly re-ensnared in an old scandal just when President Obama and his Marxist fellow-travelers were ginning up a race war in Ferguson, Missouri, by inflaming racial hatred among irresponsible black youths and their adult enablers.

At least these leftist agitators are consistent: It’s “lynch mob justice” for anyone for whom an assumption of guilt serves the Marxist agenda, whether it’s a white police officer or an iconic black civil rights hero. (Remember, they did the same thing to Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain.)

[...]

Indeed, If I were Mr. Cosby’s adviser, I would encourage him to turn the tables on his attackers. Take their siege tower and turn it into a platform for his own message on authentic black empowerment, especially in the wake of the revenge-assassination of the two police officers in New York City.

Instead of hiding from the spotlight like the Marxists hope and expect, he could step right into the center of it and preach the plain color-blind truth about personal responsibility, setting an example of fortitude. I think if he did, he might be shocked at the number of fed-up Americans – both black and white – who would rally to his side.

To have a race war, you need to generate mindless hatred on both sides – hatred that dehumanizes the individuals on the “other side” and assigns blame based on skin color. The socialist left has been grooming inner-city blacks in anti-white racism for a long time, while the fascist left has been doing the same with suburban whites by lumping all blacks together with the “Knockout Game” gangsters and other punks. (Remember that National Socialists are NOT rightists – they are nationalistic leftists).

Of course, Lively knows all about "lynch mob justice," having whipped up anti-gay sentiment in Uganda, which tried to pass a law that would permit the death penalty for merely being homosexual. While Lively has insisted he didn't support that law, he did express support for legal punishment of homosexuality (never mind that homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda).

Lively has further engaged in his own "lynch mob justice" against gays by ranting about how "lavender Marxists" are "murderers" who "have fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda." 

Lively is lying when he claims" the fascist left" are the only ones who have been "lumping all blacks together with the 'Knockout Game' gangsters and other punks." As we've documented, WND -- where Lively's column appears -- has been fearmongering about "black mob violence," with Colin Flaherty falsely insisting that only blacks play the "knockout game" against mostly suburban whites.

Lively huffs that "The take-down of Bill Cosby is a tactic to manipulate whites into giving up on blacks." He might want to chat with WND about how their campaign to manipulate whites into giving up on blacks by fearmongering about "black mob violence" has been going.

Lively thus joins Jesse Lee Peterson as a defender of Cosby at WND. When your most prominent defenders include a rabidly anti-gay activist and a writer who is quick to blame the world's ills on "radical feminists," that would seem to undermine any moral high ground Cosby has left.

MRC Denied Pro-Life Link To Tiller Murder, Blames Sharpton for NYC Police Deaths
Topic: Media Research Center

Whenever anyone in the media sought to link the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller to the anti-abortion movement -- a link that's not unreasonble to make, given killer Scott Roeder's ties to mainstream anti-abortion activist group Operation Rescue -- the Media Research Center howled about it:

• A report bashing public broadcasting cited a PBS segment in which abortion doctors called the Tiller murder terrorism as a reason public broadcasting should no longer receive federal funding.
• Clay Waters complained that a New YorkTimes columnist linked Tiller's death to right-wing radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
• The MRC declared that an NBC segment highlighting Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's anti-Tiller rhetoric was "fresh evidence" that NBC is biased.
• MRC chief Brent Bozell called Roeder an "unhinged vigilante," insisting, "In the very heart of the pro-life community, there is nothing they wanted less than another shooting of an abortionist." Bozell also denied that "the mere act of denouncing Tiller as a killer of babies – as if he were instead removing tumors – is an invitation to terrorism and murder."

But when a man killed two New York City policemen then himself, the MRC knew who to blame: Al Sharpton, President Obama and New York City Mayr Bill de Blasio. This despite the fact that none of them have never directly called for violence against anyone, let alone policemen.

The MRC's Tim Graham mocked Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson for denying that Sharpton, de Blasio and Obama are to blame, insisting that the killer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, "clearly identified himself with police 'accountability' movements for Brown and Garner and in dramatic hostility to the police in general." So holding police accountable for their actions is akin to endorsing violence?

NewsBusters' Jack Coleman penned another slobbering tribute to right-wing radio host Mark Levin that the MRC has become famous for, touting how "force of nature" Levin declared that Sharpton, Obama and Eric Holder have "blood on their hands" over the deaths. Needless to say, Coleman didn't mention the fact that Levin is employed as a spokesman for the MRC. Coleman went on to sneer that "golf is more important"to Obama than going to the funerals of the slain officers.

A Dec. 27 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Lord demands that MSNBC fire Sharpton as a host because he is "a man with 'blood on his hands' -- the blood of two policemen -- to be showcased five nights a week on their airtime."

Lord engages in a dubious metaphor likening Sharpton to D.W. Griffith, director of the infamous Ku Klux Klan-lionizing silent film "Birth of a Nation," and Obama to Woodrow Wilson, who "happily showcased the film at the White House." In fact, while "Birth of a Nation" was the first film ever screen at the White House, there is no official record of Wilson expressing any view of the film, and the one that is generally attributed to Wilson -- "It is like writing history with lightning" -- was likely made up in order to promote the film.

Lord also highlights how former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik  blamed Sharpton for "setting the tone" that resulted in the policemen's deaths. He doesn't mention that Kerik's credibilty is a little on the dubious side given that he recently spent time in prison on corruption charges.

Nevertheless, Lord insists that NBC "looks more and more every day like the home of the values portrayed in Birth of a Nation." Funny, we don't recall Lord ever saying that about the anti-abortion movement after Tiller's murder.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

MRC's Graham Is Bitter About Colbert's Success
Topic: Media Research Center

Tom Johnson complains in a Dec. 19 NewsBusters post:

If you’re tired of the tributes and homages to Stephen Colbert’s faux-conservative character, take heart: they’re just about over with. Probably.

One of the gushiest goodbyes came from Leslie Savan, who blogs about media/political issues for The Nation. In a Thursday post, Savan noted that on The Colbert Report, Colbert didn’t attack conservatives head-on, but rather “inhabit[ed] their heads via a character,” which enabled him to “demonstrate…how right-wing psychology works.”

Colbert, opined Savan, “show[ed] that beneath his character’s assertion of omnipotence and certitude, there’s a fragility, one that’s also buried in most of the real-life blowhards and their dittoheads…If they stop clapping, Tinker Bell will die. If they stop nodding in agreement, or step off the reservation of Tax Cuts, Guns, and Built It Myself, they could get Other-ed.”

Johnson won't tell you this, but Othering people who stray off the right-wing reservation is exactly how his NewsBusters boss, Media Research Center official Tim Graham, operates. As we've documented, just last week Graham lashed out at anyone who committed the offense of criticizing Ted Cruz, including solidly conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin.

Indeed, such Othering -- or, as we call it, Heathering -- is Graham's and the MRC's chief method of enforcing right-wing ideological rigidity. It seems that the writer Johnson was highlighting has it correct.

Speaking of which, Graham was extremely bitter about the praise given to Colbert upon the retirement of his character. He huffed in a Dec. 18 post:

Liberals are going into deep mourning over the television death of Stephen Colbert, Very Badly Disguised Liberal. They think this is an "unparalleled achievement." In Wednesday's paper, TV writer Bill Carter of The New York Times lined up all of Colbert’s competitors to call him a genius for disparaging conservatives with so much panache.

“For nine years, Stephen Colbert has relentlessly maintained his pompous, deeply ridiculous but consistently appealing conservative blowhard character he has left an indelible mark on late-night television comedy,” Carter wrote. “Consistently appealing?” To whom? Liberals presume “why, everybody enjoys mocking conservatives as opposed to reading.”

It’s these cheap, repetitive insults that don’t deserve a Hall of Fame induction, but liberals love hating conservatives so preciously that anything that helps them demean their opponents as God-fearing, America-loving morons is an instant classic.

Graham turned even more bitter in a Dec. 21 post, ranting that "Washington Post TV writer Hank Stuever didn’t refrain from the goo over the end of Stephen Colbert’s tenure at Comedy Central. His "Critic's Notebook" might have been too soaked with tears to be legible, but it made it into print." Graham grumbled that the idea of Colbert's audience being divided between those who got his schtick and those who didn't was really about "the people who loved the joke, and the people who were the joke."

Such bitterness toward the success of the likes of Colbert and Jon Stewart goes a long way toward explaining why the MRC's own "comedy" show, "NewsBusted," is such a painfully unfunny failure and how the MRC's fundraising effort to upgrade its production values overlooks the fact that it doesn't matter how slick the show looks if it still isn't funny.

WND's Klein Tries, Fails To Link NY Cop Shooting to Obama
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein does his best to tie the killer of two New York City policemen to President Obama in a Dec. 21 WorldNetDaily article:

 

CNS Reporter Can't Stop Portraying Federal Spending on LGBT Issues As A Waste
Topic: CNSNews.com

Last week, we captured CNSNews.com's Melanie Hunter portraying federal money spent on LGBT issues as a waste (as CNS is wont to do). Hunter was at it again in a Dec. 19 article:

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $189,186 in taxpayer dollars to Emory University to study the mortality of transgendered people, using electronic medical records for people who receive care from the Veterans Affairs Administration.

“The purpose of this study is to determine whether transgender persons defined as those who medically change the gender assigned to them at birth (male to female or female to male) have higher or lower risk of death and certain diseases than men and women that do not consider themselves transgender,” the grant said.

[...]

CNSNews.com contacted Michael Goodman, project leader for the grant, by email to inquire why the grant is an effective use of taxpayer funds, but no response was given by press time.

Gotta love Hunter's presumption that such spending is not "effective."