Bozell & Graham Whine About 'Christian Terrorism' Claims, Ignore Pastor Who Called For Execution of Gays
Topic: Media Research Center

In their Nov. 20 column, Tim Graham and Brent Bozell rant that "what is wholly unacceptable is any attempt to drag Christianity into a moral-equivalency game with radical Islam." They continue:

Then there are the feminists who love to make comparisons of Christianity and radical Islam by implying that Christians should be defined as abortion-clinic personnel killers. Late-term abortionist George Tiller was shot at his Lutheran church in 2009, and then you have to go back to Dr. Barnett Slepian being shot in his own home in 1998. How many tens of thousands have perished at the hands of Islamic radicals during that time frame?

Christians immediately condemned the killing of abortionists, evil as they are, as immoral. 

But Bozell (and, presumably, Graham as his ghostwriter) didn't condemn Tiller's death with any hint of enthusiasm -- it was more of a defensive move. In a June 2009 column just after Tiller's murder, Bozell complained that Keith Olbermann called Tiller's murder an "assassination," adding: "Olbermann insisted that the mere act of denouncing Tiller as killer of babies - as if he were instead removing tumors - is an invitation to terrorism and murder." 

Bozell cited "an avalanche of press releases from pro-life groups denouncing the killing," but he omitted anti-abortion leader Randall Terry -- whose activism the MRC has promoted over the years -- expressing apparant joy over Tiller's murder, saying that "I believe George Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the 'legal' murder of the Jews that fell into their hands."

Yet Bozell aped Terry's rhetoric, declaring: "George Tiller was a monster who personally murdered 60,000 babies. May God have mercy on his soul." Bozell can't denounce Terry because he sounds exactly like him.

Later, one of Bozell's employees sought to justify Tiller's murder by complaining that "reporters do nothing to help their audience understand why this man was targeted," albeit buried in blather about how "loss of human life is a tragedy."

In short, Bozell and Graham may or may not approve of the method of Tiller's death, but they are certainly gleeful about the results.

There was a more recent example of Christian terrorism Graham and Bozell could have denounced in their column: Iowa pastor Kevin Swanson declaring that gays should be executed. He made this claim at a conference attended by three Republican presidential candidates.

But the entire MRC organization, from Bozell on down, has remained silent about Swanson's anti-gay rant and what it means for the three GOP candidates who were introduced to the stage by Swanson (one of whom, Bobby Jindal, has since exited the race).

Shouldn't Bozell and Graham have addressed this by now, instead of enforcing a code of silence and letting it fester for more than two weeks -- presumably because MRC favorite Ted Cruz is one of the candidates who took part?

It seems that Bozell and Graham can't condemn all Christian terrorism, it shouldn't be complaining about the subject being brought up.

WND Can't Decide Whether Muslims In U.S. Must Be Tracked
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily can't quite decide what to do with the Muslims. Should they be tracked like Nazis, or not?

On Nov. 20, WND published an article by Douglas Ernst serving as stenographer for Rush Limbaugh's ranting that anyone is dare accusing Donald trump of wanting to track Muslims in America:

Rush Limbaugh blasted the “Drive-by media” on Friday for spreading an orchestrated hit-piece on Donald Trump by a “little know-nothing reporter.”

The Associated Pres, BBC, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post and a host of other media outlets ran with a Nov. 19 story first reported by Yahoo News national correspondent and Business Insider senior political correspondent Hunter Walker. The reporter wanted to know if a Trump administration would favor “special identification” for American Muslims as part of a terror-monitoring program.

What do YOU think? Sound off on media coverage of Donald Trump!

We’re going to have to – we’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

Media then took Trump’s decision to ignore allusions to Nazi Germany as de facto support for tyrannical policies.

Then, the same day, WND published an article by Leo Hohmann upset that Muslims in America weren't being tracked Nazi-style:

A Syrian refugee recently resettled in Louisiana has gone missing, and state officials were surprised to find out that federal Homeland Security agents do not track the whereabouts of foreign refugees out of respect for their “constitutional rights.”

The refugee was resettled in the Baton Rouge area in June by Catholic Charities, a subcontractor that resettles thousands of refugees in the U.S. every year for the federal government and United Nations. The Catholic group, along with others with Lutheran, Episcopal, evangelical and Jewish affiliations, gets paid by the head with taxpayer money for every refugee they bring to the U.S.

But when this particular Syrian refugee turned up missing about a week ago, the Louisiana State Police confirmed he was headed to Washington, D.C., to unite with family, WBRZ TV in Baton Rouge reported.

Once in Washington, the refugee was apparently supposed to “check in” with authorities there, according to state officials. But he never did.

There is nothing illegal about this because the State Department, which oversees the program, does not require any sort of monitoring or tracking of refugees.

In fact, the refugee was never "missing" -- the Louisiana State Police said that the refugee "was relocated through official channels to the Washington D.C. area."

This being WND, Hohmann's article has not been updated or corrected to reflect the fact that the refugee was never "missing" -- or that it conflicts with WND's purported horror that Trump is being accused of wanting to track Muslims in the U.S.

MRC's Graham Cynically Suggests He's Really Sincere About His Anti-Media Quest
Topic: Media Research Center

Tim Graham begins his Nov. 16 NewsBusters post with a complaint: "Can prominent liberal journalists ever get their brain around the idea that conservatives are sincere and not cynical when they protest liberal media bias?"

That's rich coming from a well-paid official at a eight-figure-budget organization whose entire purpose is to flog the "liberal media bias" narrative. Who wouldn't question sincerity when there's that kind of money at stake?

The answer to that question, if Graham wants to hear it, is that he and the MRC behave so cynically in promoting their anti-media narrative that there's no reason to believe they're sincere about it.

The most recent example: its treatement of allegations of bias in the Republican presidential debates. As we documented, when Donald Trump complained about liberal bias in the debate hosted by Fox News -- where MRC chief Brent Bozell has a weekly segment on Sean Hannity's show -- the MRC said and did nothing; similarly, Bozell couldn't say enough good things about a debate hosted by Fox Business while making an appearance on Fox Business.

But for CNBC's debate, the MRC cooked up a bogus "study" about how purportedly biased the questions were, and Bozell creepily declared that hearing Republican candidates complain about liberal media bias was "better than sex." Does that sound like someone who's sincere about protesting "liberal media bias"?

Other recent examples of the MRC's cynical attitude include:

• Portraying the straight news reporting of CBS' Nancy Cordes as "liberal outbursts."
• Refusing to acknowledge Sarah Palin's statement that Katie Couric's 2008 question to her about what newspapers she read was fair.
• Going so far down the rabbit hole that it insists that referring to conservatives as "conservatives" is liberal bias.
• Putting words in people's mouths in order to accuse them of bias.
• Attacking liberals who are critical of Catholics, but giving conservatives like Ann Coulter who do the same a free pass.

Of course, the most concrete evidence comes from Bozell himself, who told Rush Limbaugh that his main goal is not to correct "bias" but to discredit the media -- and that the only thing Bozell has offered as a replacement for that discredited media is his even more biased and discredited "news" outlet, CNSNews.com.

If Bozell was really sincere about "liberal media bias," he'd be trying to repair things. He'd be working with liberal groups also concerned with media bias, like Media Matters, to address the issue. Instead, no MRC official has ever appeared in public or on TV with any Media Matters official. And as I know from my years working for Media Matters, it's not because anyone at Media Matters ever declined an invitation to do so.

No matter how much they try to deny it, Bozell, Graham and the MRC are working the refs (as Eric Alterman has put it) with the goal of knocking the refs out of the game.

That's not sincerity; that's cynicism, a desire to push the narrative, no matter how hackneyed, in order to keep the money train rolling.

Graham -- whose question about sincerity vs. cynicism was driven by New York Times editor Dean Baquet calling out Ben Carson for following the MRC's template in complaining about media bias -- displayed his own cynicism in pushing his view, huffing about "how the Clintons and their assorted 'correcting' organizations hammered the Times into submission on their story reporting [Hillary] was under criminal investigation on her e-mails. The Clintons are never cynical when they complain!"

Even though Graham is suggesting the motives of Bozell and himself are pure as the driven snow, he cynically bashes anyone who disagrees with him as pawns of the Clintons. (The MRC boys are rather obsessed with the Clintons.)

Also, the Times story claiming that Hillary Clinton "was under criminal investigation on her e-mails" was, in fact, false. Why shouldn't she request a correction? And why is the MRC so upset that she did so?

Claiming that someone has no right to correct false information in the media because you personally don't like them is the height of cynicism. And Graham is too cynical to recognize it.

NEW ARTICLE: The Debate Double Standard at the MRC
Topic: Media Research Center
When Donald Trump complained about biased debate questions from Fox News, the Media Research Center said nothing. But CNBC asks questions of GOP candidates that weren't right-wing-friendly, and it goes ballistic. Read more >>

Scaife's Pittsburgh Papers Lay Off Workers, Align With Newsmax
Topic: Newsmax

Earlier, we highlighted how the Washington Times is adjusting to life without a deep-pocketed right-wing benefactor to cover literally billions of dollars in losses. Now, another right-wing newspaper heretofore protected from the free market is making a similar adjustment.

Trib Total Media, which operates the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and other media holdings of right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife -- who died last year -- announced last week that it was laying off 153 people and will combine its three Pittsburgh-area properties into a single newspaper. It also claims that if two other papers can't be sold, they will be shut down, eliminating another 91 jobs.

As bad as that situation is, it could have been even worse. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (the Tribune-Review's competitor) reports that according to the Scaife estate's inheritance tax report, Scaife loaned the Tribune-Review $147 million, which the estate considers to be uncollectible, which would have the side effect of lowering the value of the estate for tax purposes.

And that's just what's documented by the estate in promissory notes. It's possible that Scaife may have given the paper even more money off the books.

The layoff announcement also contains this interesting tidbit:

We have taken steps over the past several months to build out our digital presence. First, through Mr. Scaife’s estate, our new affiliate, 535 Media, LLC, has acquired 40 percent of the stock of Newsmax Media which is a proven national leader in digital news. We also plan to launch a joint venture with Newsmax, through our affiliate, in early 2016 that will allow us to add to our digital offerings and to expand our national reach.

The Tribune-Review announcement doesn't state how a money-losing organization such as itself could afford to buy 40 percent of Newsmax. The Pittsburgh Business Times makes the connection clearer: That piece of Newsmax is what Scaife owned, and Trib Total Media was bequeathed those shares in Scaife's will. 

The Business times also quoted Trib Total Media president and CEO Jennifer Bertetto describing how Newsmax will help its online offerings: one plan is a website that will serve as "a local and national news source targeted to baby boomers that will have a local marketplace aspect and we plan to monetize it through various email marketing concepts that NewsMax has really mastered." Given that Newsmax's "email marketing concepts" tend to center around dubious fianancial schemes and even more dubious health schemes, that may not be the best approach.

Newsmax is affected by Scaife's will in another way: The Post-Gazette writes that Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy was awarded $250,000 in the will.

All the cost-cutting demonstrates that Trib Total Media has to try to be a profitable business, even with having $147 million in debt apparently written off. Newsmax, as far as we know, does make money, and the question going forward will be how much the money-making parts of Trib Total Media, like that 40 percent share of Newsmax, will tolerate the money-losing parts.

Politico Hires A Republican Operative -- And MRC's Bozell Still Isn't Happy
Topic: Media Research Center

Right-wingers' insistence that Politico is a part of the "liberal media" has never had a basis in reality -- after all, it had a strategy to gain traction after its founding by doing stories the Drudge Report would promote.

Politico has taken it a step further by hiring an actual Republican operative, Brad Dayspring, as its VP of communications. He has an unambiguous partisan pedigree, serving as a top aide to former top Republican Eric Cantor and an adviser to Republican Gov. Scott Walker, as well as work with the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

You'd think such a clear step to the right as Politico's hire of Dayspring demonstrates would make Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell happy -- after all, a media with a right-wing bias is what he is spending millions of dollars a year to create. But it doesn't.

Why? The Republican isn't far enough to the right for him.

A Heathering-laden Nov. 20 MRC press release complains that Dayspring is a "beltway establishment Republican operative" with "a history of antagonizing conservatives, both on the national and grassroots level, smearing them on countless occasions." Bozell himself whines:

“Personnel is policy. Brad Dayspring has made his name by running to left-wing outlets to slime and disparage the Tea Party and grassroots conservatives. Some in the media and some in the GOP establishment have expressed enthusiasm for Politico’s hiring of a Republican. That does nothing for conservatives but that's not what is most important here. What matters is that Dayspring not only holds conservatives in utter contempt but has a rich history of ugly, dishonest behavior against them. Dayspring is an unethical anti-conservative hitman for hire.  And Politico hired him. It speaks volumes about Politico, none of it good."

But Bozell and the MRC are oddly short on particulars in its evidence against Dayspring. Here's what it cites:

• At the NRSC, Dayspring repeatedly attacked Dr. Milton Wolf (challenger to Sen. Pat Roberts) with hit pieces filled with half-truths and smears.
• Dayspring attacked Sen. Thad Cochran’s primary challenger Chris McDaniel with a “dishonest, dishonorable, and disreputable campaign” that focused more in disparaging the Republican challenger than building up Cochran or attacking the Democrat.

To back up the allegations regarding Wolf -- the press release links to a Breitbart article that claims Dayspring "spread harsh stories about Wolf all over the place in the media," but only offers as proof links to an article about Wolf's "interest in sharing medical X-rays on the Internet" which does not mention Dayspring (and which resulted in an investigation by the medical licensing board in Kansas), and a Dayspring tweet promoting that article. That's hardly proof of anything.

Bozell and the MRC also don't mention Wolf's extremist views that include likening President Obama to both Hitler and Mussolini, or that it might be one major reason why the NRSC, where Dayspring was employed at the time, would choose Roberts as its preferred candidate.

The quote that Dayspring's campaign against McDaniel for the NRSC-backed Cochran was "dishonest, dishonorable, and disreputable" comes from a RedState article that calls Cochran "profoundly senile, corrupt, and adulterous," which apparently is not a dishonest, dishonorable, and disreputable thing to do.

Again, Bozell and the MRC ignore negative information regarding their preferred candidate -- notably, that the campaign was dominated by an incident in which a McDaniel supporter and three others were arrested for illegally shooting video of Cochran's infirm wife in a nursing home.

However, a more likely explanation of Bozell's hostility toward Dayspring is noted elsewhere in the RedState article, which complains that Dayspring "accused Mark Levin and the Senate Conservative[s] Fund of pay-to-play purchases of Levin’s book." While RedState claims this is a "lie," the link it supplies on the controversy (from Politico, ironically) doesn't debunk the pay-to-play charge, but simply quotes Levin denying it, while also noting that the Senate Conservatives Fund spent a whopping $427,000 on copies of a Levin book to give to donors.

Bozell and the MRC are stenographers for, and protectors of, Levin.

It appears that Bozell is letting his personal grudge against Dayspring drive the MRC's agenda, refusing to acknowledge that a media organization hiring a partisan Republican is a victory for him. Not only is it very unprofessional behavior, it's self-defeating.

Hillary Derangement Syndrome, Supersize WND Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Thursday, congressional Republicans held their long advertised hearing on the Benghazi scandal, calling as a witness none other than the “Wicked Witch of the Left,” Hillary Clinton. Fresh off of her presidential debate performance ironically held in “Sin City,” Las Vegas, Hillary, looking a bit worn, was confronted with questions about why newly released emails showed that she knew that the attack on the U.S. mission was the result of terrorists linked to al-Qaida, but instead lied to the families of the victims as well as the American public, blaming the attack on a video critical of the Prophet Muhammad.

[...]

This case, more than the hapless efforts of congressional establishment Republicans, could seal the fate of the Wicked Witch of the Left, much like the house that fell on the original evil witch in “The Wizard of Oz.” Hopefully, with God’s grace and divine justice, Hillary will soon be wearing a pair of red shoes in federal prison, and the nation and the world will be rid of this modern-day evil witch once and for all.

-- Larry Klayman, Oct. 23 WorldNetDaily column

There’s a reason that William Safire, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist for the New York Times, labeled Hillary a “congenital liar” back in 1996.

Do voters really want another truth dodger, ethics compromiser, ego-driven justifier and chronic congenital liar sitting in the highest office of the land and being chief of all its armed forces?

-- Chuck Norris, Oct. 25 WND column

I’ve met liars worse than Hillary. I’ve known liars who never told the truth, including one famous hometown boy who told the truth once but he thought he was lying. But I don’t think I’ve ever met a liar as comfortable as Hillary.

-- Barry Farber, Oct. 27 WND column

At this point it doesn’t look like anything can stop the Clintons from returning to the White House. If none of our best interrogators can get anything to stick, no one can. She snookered them into holding the hearing in public so that she could pull out the sympathy card, firmly holding her head high as they “bullied” her. I’m sure she had months with an acting coach to pull that off.

Her nomination and eventual presidency has been a set up from the get-go. Anyone who doesn’t see it has to be blind, and the sad thing is that it doesn’t look like anything can be done about it. The fix has been in for years, and that’s why the Democratic Party has no viable candidate running except her. Jim Webb knows it, Chaffee knows it (both of whom have dropped out of the race), even Bernie Sanders knows that he is just there as a sham candidate. The media will continue its fake reporting, gushing over how wonderfully presidential she is and pretending that this is an actual election. As such, it’s obvious that there is nothing to stop this inevitable victory except an act of God.

-- Morgan Brittany, Oct. 27 WND column

Hillary Clinton’s performance art before Congress last week did not impress anyone who was not already inclined to slavishly adore her. While not quite as combative as her infamous “What difference, at this point, does it make?” testimony just a few months after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Clinton’s most recent appearance was every bit as brazen, obfuscating and deceitful.

-- Laura Hollis, Oct. 29 WND column

It is difficult to believe that the federal prosecutors and FBI agents investigating Clinton will not recommend that she be indicted. Inexplicably, she seems to have forgotten that they were monitoring what she said under oath to the Benghazi committee. By lying under oath, and by misleading Congress, she gave that team additional areas to investigate and on which to recommend indictments.

When those recommendations are made known, no ballot will bear her name.

-- Andrew Napolitano, Nov. 4 WND column

Hillary’s political life has been a myriad of legal entanglements and behavior that at the very least border on treason and at the worst demands she be charged, found guilty and sentenced to prison for the maximum amount of time allowable under the law.

Hillary wants to be president, but she has proven herself incapable of restraint from alleged criminal behavior, going back to her time in Arkansas. She is a bitter harridan who has subverted justice and due process. I would also argue that she in concert with Obama suborned perjury in the aftermath of Benghazi.

-- Mychal Massie, Nov. 9 WND column

Palin, Of All People, Blows Up A Key MRC 'Liberal Bias' Talking Point
Topic: Media Research Center

Since the 2008 election, the Media Research Center has held as a cornerstone of "liberal bias" Katie Couric's 2008 interview with Sarah Palin, in which she could not give a coherent answer to Couric's simple question about what newspapers and magazines she read:

• Tim Graham asserted that it "was designed as a 'gotcha' question to underline Palin's lack of worldly sophistication."
• Brent Baker declared that the question was designed to show how "Palin is an ill-informed dolt."
• A 2008 MRC report whined that media focus on Palin's inability to answer the question "left the impression that Palin was unable to identify any news sources because she isn’t interested in current events – an implausible supposition to make about an accomplished politician."
• Lachlan Markay grumbled that the interview was "perhaps the left's favorite Palin-basing talking point."
• Kyle Drennen sneered that Couric receiving an award for the interview was  yet another testament to liberals celebrating liberal."
• The MRC gave a platform to Palin fanboy John Ziegler, who dismissed the Couric interview as "bogus."Ziegler was also permitted to claim that Palin's "non-answer" to the question "has been totally misunderstood and misrepresented."
• Graham also laughably suggested that Couric was "holding the microphone like a baseball bat" during the interview.
• Noel Sheppard claimed that Couric was an "arrogant moderator doing his or her best to make the former Alaska governor look foolish" and insisted that the interview was a "hit job." Sheppard also grumbled: "So because Palin didn't answer that idiotic question by Katie Couric two years ago, morons in the media believe she doesn't read" and touted how Palin finally got around to answering the question some time later in Ziegler's fanboy documentary.

Well, toss all that out the window.

In an interview last week, Palin conceded that Couric's question on which publications she read was "a fair question" and that "I had a crappy answer" to it.

Unsurprisingly, the MRC has not posted this interview anywhere on its network of websites. They don't want to blow up one of their key talking points, after all.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, WND Management Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

So, let’s take stock: abandonment by his father, early Muslim training, toxic teen influences, hardcore Marxist indoctrination and Alinsky training, drug abuse (“Choom Gang”), association with criminals (Tony Rezko) and terrorists (William Ayers), racist religious affiliation (Jeremiah Wright), extreme political ambition and probable mental illness/disorder. Quite a cocktail that forms the current U.S. president’s worldview and sensibilities.

The question is not whether Obama is delusional or not – that is undeniable. The question is, in what frame of reference is he delusional – the narrow one Krauthammer cites, regarding Obama’s denial that radical Islam poses an existential threat to America and the world? Or the wider context of the rest of life? For when we widen our scope, we are forced to acknowledge that Obama gravitates toward evil and delusion not just with regard to the jihad threat, but in virtually every area: He wants to force 15-year-old girls to shower naked with boys who delusionally believe they’re girls. He intentionally allows our nation to be overrun with illegal aliens and legal “refugees” from cultures that hate America (today’s headline says of the Syrian refugees already in the U.S., 2,098 are Muslims and 53 are Christians). He annually releases tens of thousands of convicted criminal illegal aliens – we’re talking murderers, rapists and drug dealers – back onto American streets. He’s a radical proponent of what can only be called infanticide, the “aborting” of fully formed, full-term healthy human babies.

In every area, Obama demonstrates an unfortunate affinity for that which normal people would describe as destructive, corrupt, evil.

Whether this is because Obama is evil at his core, or whether there’s a decent person locked up inside but who has been traumatized and brainwashed – a Manchurian president, programmed not by exotic far-off communist brainwashers, but by a nonstop sequence of corrupting influences throughout his life – is not ours to know.

Ultimately, the question is largely academic. Whatever the ultimate explanation of Obama’s delusional presidency, he demonstrates at every turn a remarkable attraction for that which is destructive and corrupting to human life, that is, “evil.” And he is dragging America – and increasingly the world – through hell in search of it, which he somehow, however inexplicably, sees as good.

-- David Kupelian, Nov. 17 WorldNetDaily column

The list of potentially devastating and catastrophic threats seems almost endless when you start enumerating them.

In considering all of them, however, I came to an alarming conclusion.

The No. 1 threat to America’s national security has a name. It’s a person. It’s the de facto president of the United States at least until Jan. 20, 2017 – more than a year from now. The No. 1 enemy of this great experiment in self-governance and limited government under the rule of law and through the will of the people is none other than the man in the White House – Barack Obama.

I don’t make this assertion lightly.

I make it on the weighing of the evidence before us.

Would ISIS have a chance to spread its virus of death and mayhem throughout the free world without Obama’s incubation?

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

Could he do more to encourage radical Islam’s goals of imposing fear and asserting control through his policies of forced importation of tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of so-called “refugees” from the Middle East into the U.S. without screening against the kinds of people who attacked Paris last week?

When he accuses Republicans of spreading “fear and panic” by questioning the wisdom of this dictatorial plan imposed on an unwilling republic and sovereign states isn’t he actually and deliberately doing what he accuses his political opponents of doing?

[...]

Could I be right that America’s No. 1 national security threat is not named ISIS, not named Putin, not named al-Qaida or China or economic calamity but rather Barack Hussein Obama?

-- Joseph Farah, Nov. 18 WND column

MRC Tries To Distract From New Film About Catholic Priest Sex Scandals
Topic: Media Research Center

With the release of the film "Spotlight," about how the Boston Globe broke the story of systemic sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, the Media Research Center is trying to do what it always does when the subject pops up in the media: spin and change the subject.

The Catholic League's Bill Donohue -- who likes to falsely claim that the abusive priests were all gay -- takes a crack in a Nov. 6 NewsBusters post, complaining:

The media are pushing Spotlight, the movie that opens on Friday about the Boston Globe team that exposed priestly sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese prior to 2002. But there is little interest in this issue when non-Catholics are implicated in such crimes. As recent cases show, many courts around the nation evince disparate treatment as well.

Donohue then selectively recounts random, isolated cases of abuse from across the country. For instance:

In May 2014, Michael Travis, an assistant softball coach at a Nebraska high school was arrested for sexually assaulting two softball players. Two more alleged victims came forward in December. This past August, he cut a deal with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to simple assault, and was told he would not have to register as a sex offender or spend a day in jail. It received little media coverage.

Actually, the case in question happened in Iowa, not Nebraska. Donohue doesn't mention that the plea deal was approved by the alleged victims because it would force Travis to surrender his teaching and coaching licenses and agree to never teach or coach again, or that some of the charges against Travis had to be thrown out because they took place before a law specifically outlawing the alleged behavior was enacted.

Donohue goes on to whine: "If any of these accused men had been a priest, both the media and the courts would have acted differently. This is not even debatable." But Donohue delierately omits the reason why the Catholic abuse cases were especially newsworthy, not just in Boston but in other dioceses as well: they were widespread, and church officials spent decades covering them up. Donohue cannot say that about any of the isolated cases he cites as a distraction.

(On the other hand, kudos to the MRC for disclosing at the top of Donohue's post that MRC chief Brent Bozell is a member of the Catholic League's board of advisers, which it didn't do until we started pointing it out.)

Then, in a Nov. 15 post, MRC official Tim Graham sneers that the film "claims to be an accurate representation of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning crusade in 2001 and 2002 against clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church," then goes into distraction mode by also falsely playing the blame-the-gays card:

Surely, it's a true story that there were monsters disguised as men of God that abused children. But it's also true that there are contrary facts that this reporter-boosting movie excluded, like the gay-activist priests that the Globe promoted in its pages -- until it turned out their gay liberation was unleashed on children.

The headline of Graham's post reads, "WashPost Critic: Heroic Liberal Reporter Movie Like 'Watching Porn'." But Graham gets this wrong too: As the excerpt he uses makes very clear, the Washington Post critic is actually quoting someone else saying that.

Graham's manufactured freakout over that statement is odd, since he apparently wasn't offended by his boss, Brent Bozell, creepily called Republican ranting about media bias "better than sex."

WND Doctor Still Pushing Discredited Filthy-Illegals Smear
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Elizibeth Lee Vliet, former director of the right-wing Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has long hurled screeds warning against disease-ridden illegal immigrants, usually containing misleading or false information, and WorldNetDaily has given her that platform.

Vliet strikes again in a Nov. 11 WND column cheering on Donald Trump's fearmongering about illegal immigrants:

Donald Trump is right about this: Illegal immigration is one of the most serious threats to national security, American sovereignty and economic stability.

Even Trump, however, has not yet addressed the even more serious medical dangers of illegal immigration for Americans.

Invisible travelers coming across the border with the people: bacteria like tuberculosis (TB), viruses such as EVD-68 that killed so many U.S. children in 2014, Ebola, West Nile, dengue fever, parasites and fungal illnesses.

Delays in access to medical services for Americans with longer waits to see doctors, especially for Medicaid patients.

Long waits in emergency rooms jammed with illegals waiting for care at U.S. taxpayer expense.

The vastly higher costs for states to cover Medicaid services designed to provide medical care for low-income American citizens, but now expanded to serve those here illegally as well.

Given that we've already documented that the enterovirus EVD-68 outbreak of last year was not caused by illegal immigrants, it's likely she's overstating the rest of this as well. Indeed, nobody is bringing Ebola across the Mexican border.

Vliet goes on to rant about how "TB in the U.S. is mostly an “imported” disease brought by people coming from countries where it is widespread, unlike the U.S.," making sure to emphasize that "foreign-born people" are primarily spreading it. in fact, there is no epidemic of tuberculosis -- or any of the other communicable diseases Vliet rants about -- on the southern border.

It's important to remember that Vliet and the AAPS have no interesting in truth or accuracy when issuing their anti-immigrant screeds. Remember that back in 2003, an AAPS journal article (which purports to be peer-reviewed) asserted that leprosy cases in the U.S. -- a complete lie. To our knowledge, the AAPS has never issued a correction of the article, and the original aricle is still available at the AAPS website.

Because she insists on putting fearmongering over facts, there's simply no reason to believe anything Vliet says on medical issues.

At The MRC, Reporting The News Is A 'Liberal Outburst'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is so terrible as a group of media analysts, it seems that it largely has to find "liberal media bias" where it doesn't exist.

Example: Geoffrey Dickens' Nov. 14 attack on CBS' Nancy Cordes in advance of her co-hosting a Democratic presidential debate. His title: "CBS Debate Co-Moderator Nancy Cordes’ Worst Liberal Outbursts." Let's take a look at what he claims is a "liberal outburst":

-- "Cordes Shocked GOPers Criticize 'Undisputed Front-Runner' Hillary Clinton": Actually, all Cordes is doing is doing a debate preview in which she notes that Republicans targeted Hillary at their last debate. She expressed no shock whatsoever about this in the video clip accompanying the item.

Vox.com pointed out the game the MRC is playing here: "The conservative media watchdog site Newsbusters has convinced itself that this banal recap she did of the fourth GOP debate exhibits liberal media bias, so be on the lookout for post-debate complaints about her questioning almost regardless of what she actually says."

-- "Carly Fiorina Is Just as Neanderthal as the Men": Cordes notes that Fiorina claims that Hillary won't be able to play the "gender card" against her if she gets the Repubican nomination, then adds taht "many so-called women’s issues ... Fiorina’s views are identical to the men she shared the stage with last night." Cordes did not use the word "Neanderthal"; Dickens is putting words into her mouth.

-- "How is Next House Speaker Going to Deal with 'Knucklehead' Conservatives?" Cordes is not calling House conservatives in her question to outgoing House Speaker John Boehner; he's noting that Boehner himself called them that. That isn't "liberal bias."

-- "Preparing to Blame Conservatives for Any Lack of Progress." This is a question from Cordes to Boehner after the 2014 election, in which she notes that some conservatives "don’t think you’re conservative enough." Given that there has, in fact, been little progress in Congress due in no small part to conservative refusal to compromise, and that Boehner quit as House speaker in part because he was under attack by conservatives who didn't think he was "conservative enough," Cordes seems rather prescient here.

-- "Fretting Obama Will Lose a Vital Critic from the Left." Dickens provides no evidence of "fretting"; Cordes is simply pointing out in this 2011 quote -- yes, Dickens apparently had to go back that far to find a suitable "liberal outburst" -- that Anthony Weiner, who had just gotten caught in personal scandal that would force him to resign his House seat, is a liberal who wasn't afraid to criticize Obama. Again, that's not "liberal bias."

Most of what Cordes is quoted doing here is reporting the news. That Dickens and the MRC thinks these are "liberal outbursts" says much more about the MRC's highly distorted vision of what reporting is.

Meanwhile...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
We take to Huffington Post to do an overview of the extremist and birther background of Aaron Klein, who has jumped from WorldNetDaily to run Breitbart's new Jerusalem website. Read more >>

MRC Is Mad Media Won't Take Obama Quote Out of Context
Topic: NewsBusters

The Media Rsearch Center loves to complain about the media taking people out of context -- at least when it's not taking people out of context itself. Now, the MRC is complaining that the media won't take President Obama out of context.

Tom Blumer writes in a Nov. 16 NewsBusters item:

The obvious pull quote of the day from President Obama's contentious press conference in Antalya, Turkey is this statement: "What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with ..." Obama then claimed that any ideas coming from those who believe in such a notion have "no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region."

Ed Driscoll at PJ Media believes that these words are "the president’s equivalent of Carter’s malaise speech" in the 1970s. Just in case he's right, related stories at the Associated Press and the New York Times have not mentioned Obama's statement, a clear indicator of his lack of genuine resolve, in their coverage.

Actually, if you put Obama's comment in its full context of his entire answer to the question he was asked -- something Blumer clearly has no interest in doing -- the president's reference to "some notion of American leadership or America winning" was clearly intended as a reference to an empty gesture done solely for posturing and which would not advance America's interest in the fight against terrorism, since he goes on to state (after Blumer cut it off) that such a posturing gesture "has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people" and that he to pursue what actually works.

But Blumer doesn't want to tell you about that, since it undermines the petty partisan sniping of his post.

Is Jesse Lee Peterson Secretly A White KKK Leader?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Read the following:

Dear white people: your days are numbered

This has been a brutal couple of weeks for those with white skin.

It started with a three-ring circus at the University of Missouri, another landmark in the slow death of white America. And it drew to a close with the actual deaths of scores of French citizens.

[...]

The University of Missouri will never be the same now.

Weak, liberal whites have created monsters in their schools. The monsters are now eating them, and threatening to eat others.

By Thursday, chaos reigned across the country as students protested their schools and called for heads to roll.

The situation will not get better until white Americans put an end to it. In fact, it will only get worse.

[...]

And with clear evidence that white Americans are standing by as their country is going down in flames, Friday evening we heard news of the Paris attacks and concert hall massacre of mostly white French by Muslim terrorists.

Somewhere along the way, whites in Europe and America have lost their connection to God and have decided to give up defending their communities and freedoms. Europe has been in the process of handing their continent over to Muslims. And white Americans are handing over their country to black malcontents – and Muslims. Friday it was reported that the first wave of Syrian immigrants had arrived in New Orleans. Where was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to stop this? Where are the protests from outraged Americans?

If you stand up against the bullies – whether they’re radical black bullies on campuses, or Islamic bullies, they will go sit down.

But if you act with fear, they will run over you and your children.

You can’t prove anything to angry people. You just have to speak up, be honest and live your life. Telling the truth and setting a living example is the only way to change anything for the better.

The greatest civilizations in the world are being destroyed by the godless.

The godless have not been raised by decent parents. They’re looking for love in all the wrong places, and in the wrong way. And now they’re destroying the free world.

It’s time for whites in America, and in Europe, to stop the madness. If it isn’t stopped, your way of life – and possibly your life itself – will be stopped.

Who does it sound like wrote this? A leader of the Ku Klux Klan who believes in white supremacy?

Nope -- it was by Jesse Lee Peterson, a black conservative, at WorldNetDaily.

If these words had come from the pen of a white KKK leader, he would be universally rejected and condemned. But because it is Peterson saying it, he gets a pass (just like fellow WND columnist Mychal Massie).

Even more laughably, WND -- who's publishing his latest book as well as giving him a weekly column --  is trying to market Peterson as a "civil rights leader." Would any actual "civil rights leader" say such things?

Peterson leads nobody in the civil rights movement; he has no constituency other than white right-wingers who know he says the things that would be too racist for them to say.

Sadly, it seems that being a proxy for white racists is something Peterson actually appears to want to be.